Hang the DJ
by ILoveLeonardPenny
Summary: Paired up in a dating program with a strict end date, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz get along so well that they begin to question the System's logic. A Fitzsimmons AU of the Black Mirror Episode 'Hang the DJ.'
1. introductions

Chapter Text

With her hair fluttering gently about her face in a breeze, Jemma Simmons opened her brown eyes. She blinked slightly in the unexpected brightness, but as soon as she got her bearings, she breathed out a sigh of pure awe. Everywhere she looked, the land simply flourished. The air was thick with the natural perfume of a jasmine vine that twisted and snaked along the fence, and the grass that grew in dizzying maze patterns around her feet was lush and green. In the dusk, fireflies glittered amongst the flowers and evergreen bushes, their light twinkling on and off, and the whole setting looked properly ethereal. A fountain of marble gurgled happily beside her, and in the distance she thought she could hear the faint tinkling of a piano. She smiled and let the serenity wash over her, closing her eyes again to properly revel in it.

Suddenly, breaking the tranquility, something beeped. Jemma jumped rather abruptly, and her eyes fell to a small device on the bench beside her. Frowning, but not yet worried, she picked it up, puzzled in the realization that it had not been there a moment before. In her hands, the device was a pleasant weight, rounded softly on either end, not unlike a chicken egg in size or shape. It beeped and beeped, and Jemma raised it to level with her curious eyes, trying to figure it out.

"Hello." A voice spoke, happily.

Letting out a squeak, Jemma promptly dropped the device in surprise, and she thought she heard it grunt as it landed in the perfectly rounded pebbles at her feet. "Ouch." It said.

Scrambling, Jemma reached down and picked it up. "Sorry." She apologized, lifting the device to her lips. Confused, she was unsure where to speak into the device, as she could see no blemishes on its surface to signify a speaker or recorder.

"My name is Jarvis." The device said, and though it was incorporeal, Jemma was immediately struck by how pleasant the voice was: much like a customer service employe. "Welcome to the System."

"Thank you." Jemma responded.

"Before we begin, it is protocol to do a full biometric scan of your brainwaves. To consent, please say 'I consent.'" Jarvis instructed her.

"I consent." She repeated.

In her hands, a nearly invisible panel on the surface of the egg-like device slid open, revealing a black screen. Eyebrows creasing in curiosity, Jemma leaned closer to it, trying to get a glimpse of the mechanical substructure. Then, upon the screen, several red lines appeared in a grid pattern, growing brighter and brighter with every second. Intuitively, Jemma knew that these lines were completing her biometric brain scan, and she tried to stay as still as possible. With a final beep, the device's screen blackened again, and Jarvis spoke.

"Scan complete." He announced. "Thanks to this scan, I now have full access to your brain's synapses. As your System coach, I will work alongside you to ensure that you find your True Match, compiling data from a variety of strategic romantic exploits."

Jemma nodded, quite curious about the science behind the particular interface program. It had to be extremely complicated to house all of her sensitive information in such a compact device. She got to thinking about the biometric scans and the wiring, but after a brief moment, she swallowed her burning questions. Surely it wasn't protocol to want to take apart her device, and Jarvis might not appreciate the thought. As she sat on the stone bench with her new companion, a light breeze fluttered past her and through her blouse. The thin fabric did little to stem the chill that the breeze produced, and she watched goosebumps erupt all the way up her pale arms.

"Right now, you are cold." Jarvis's voice said.

"Read my brainwaves to tell me that, did you?" She joked, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

"Yes." Jarvis answered honestly.

"Right." Jemma responded, deciding that though extremely advanced, her coach seemed to lack a sense of humor. "Well, if I don't have a match, I'd quite like to-"

The device beeped, and the screen flashed a pleasant blue. In faint white lettering, the name 'Leo Fitz' glowed. "Your first match has been selected. Please proceed to table 35 at the System's Hub." Jarvis announced, proudly.

"Oh, that soon?" She asked, impressed. "Excellent."

She stood, and her body rejected the sudden movement. She couldn't quite remember how long she had been sitting on the stone bench, surrounded by the lush Japanese garden, but judging by the aching in her bones, it had been quite a while. She stretched widely, regretting that she would have to leave the serene place behind. It really did look lovely, sitting happily upon a backdrop of deep purple and streaks of pink across the setting sky. Though she felt as though she had been resting in the low evening light for ages, the night was only just beginning to blink with starlight from the East. Breaking her from her thoughts, fairy lights sparkled on beside her, illuminating a pebbled pathway and, hopefully, in the direction of her romantic exploit.

She followed the path for quite a ways, across a well-maintained grassy field and under a massive stone wall that seemed to stretch all the way to the heavens. Though the path looked well-traveled, she met no one else on her way, and the loneliness of it filled her up. She could hear her every echoing footstep off the immense wall. "Jarvis?" She asked, her voice sounded nervous. "Am I going the right way?"

"You are going the right way." He confirmed. "Please proceed to table 35."

"Okay."

As she walked, Jemma found a quiet solace in science. Doing the sums in her head quickly, she considered the scientific improbability of a true System match. What kind of algorithm, she asked herself, could really simplify love into data? Another, less rational part of her felt jittery with excitement, optimistic at the thought of a finding a soulmate.Soulmate.Even the word tasted like honey on Jemma's tongue, and she promptly abandoned her previous concerns to rely entirely on the System. It boasted a 99.9% success rate, she reminded herself. Surely was more complex than Jemma would ever understand.

Finally, Jemma reached a large building with a large sign that read 'The Hub,' and she knew that she had arrived at her destination. It was architecturally modern, and shaped like a massive nest that wrapped all the way around the courtyard. In the low evening light, the windows glowed from inside with a yellow lamplight, silhouetting couples at dinner. She could make out their shapes as they overlooked beautiful views of the gardens that Jemma had just passed through. Her heart flipped with nerves, wondering if her soulmate was inside.

She passed through large mahogany double-doors into a romantic restaurant. A pleasant hostess took her device from her hand and passed it underneath a scanner, where it beeped and turned green like a traffic light. Satisfied, the hostess handed the device back to Jemma and led her purposely over to a table that was laden with red roses and low-burning candles. Jemma smiled graciously as the woman left her side, and she settled rather nervously into her chair. All around her, couples ate and the sound of cutlery on plates and flirtatious laughter filled her senses. As far as she could see, Jemma was the only woman sitting on her own. She raised her device to her mouth and whispered, "Jarvis? Am I in the right place? He's not here yet."

"You are in the right place." Jarvis confirmed.

Jemma nodded, and tried to squash the nerves that rose in her throat. She cast her eyes around the restaurant for distraction, and found many. The restaurant was incredible; a wide patio with glowing fire pits stretched seemingly for miles, and the red and orange color scheme of the wallpaper were subtle romantic reminders of the purpose of the System. However artificial the circumstances, the amorous aura hung on the very air and seeped into Jemma's skin. She felt immediately underdressed looking at the other women; she spotted several pairs of diamond earrings sparkling in the candlelight, and wondered why she hadn't changed out of her Doc Marten boots and button down into something more formal. She frantically raised her hand to her hair and tried to comb out any tangles with her fingers.

"You are nervous." Jarvis spoke.

"Of course I'm nervous." She hissed. "Who wouldn't be? I'm about to meet a potential soulmate."

"If it is any comfort," Jarvis explained, "first dates are rarely true matches. They serve mainly as a baseline for data collection."

"It is, a bit. Thank you." Jemma replied.

Heartbeat spiking, Jemma watched the hostess lead a man towards them. Mouth going dry, Jemma watched nervously before he was decidedly led off in another direction. "How will I know if it's him?" Jemma asked.

"This is him." Jarvis responded. The screen of her device lit up, showing her the image of a man running down the brightly lit path to the restaurant. "He is running late."

"Quite literally." Jemma noted, before the video stream was shut off.

Knowing that her match was well on his way, Jemma tried to relax into her chair. Looking around her, she decided she very much liked the way the white curtains billowed in a light breeze, and how the smell of meat sizzling in red wine filled the entire restaurant. It was quite a nice place for a first date, she thought.

Suddenly, the sound of heavy footsteps filled the room and Jemma looked up to see a man running in, his cheeks flushed from the effort of sprinting. He made a beeline straight for her table and stopped short of running straight into it. "Sorry." He managed, breath heaving and eyes streaming from exertion. He leaned over, placing his hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. Watching with mild fascination, she waited for him to regain his physical strength and mental faculties before speaking. Just as Jemma was about to open her mouth, the hostess from earlier hurried to their table, her polite face verging on one of annoyance.

"Sir, you are not allowed to dine with someone who isn't your System-Approved match. Please surrender your device-"

"She's mine!" He assured her, then blushed and fumbled to correct himself. "I mean, she's not mine, she's the match, I meanmymatch, bloody hell-"

Tips of his ears turning crimson, the man surrendered his device to the hostess, one identical to Jemma's, and watched with a hint of nerves in his blue eyes as the woman passed it under a scanner. Finally, the device beeped and turned green, and the woman looked up. "Apologies, sir. Do enjoy your date."

"Thanks." He replied.

The hostess left back to her stand, and the man turned rather nervously to Jemma. Jemma had watched the scene unfold with a barely contained mirth, and had placed her hand in front of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of it. She tried to tell herself firmly that it wasn'tthatfunny, not the way in which he had arrived, nor the obvious embarrassment at having misspoken, nor the over-dramatic reaction of the restaurant staff. But her nerves had finally found a catalyst, and suddenly she was giggling like a schoolgirl. A moment later, he joined in, and the two of them were laughing loudly.

"Gosh, I'm sorry." He chuckled, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.

She waved a hand in dismissal, still laughing too hard to respond.

"That must have been quite the sight, me running in like an absolute madman, guns blazing-"

She kept laughing, clutching at her now aching stomach as the scene replayed itself in her mind. He laughed too, throwing his head back. They both drew the curious eyes of some other couples in the restaurant, but Jemma hardly cared. For the first time that night, Jemma was at ease, and it was all due to her ridiculous date.

With streaming eyes, she finally managed to speak. "I'm Jemma Simmons."

"I'm bloody embarrassed." He smiled, shaking his head.

"Nice to meet you, Bloody Embarrassed." She joked.

"Oh, God, no." He rolled his eyes, and his smile widened. "I'm Leo Fitz, but I just go by Fitz."

"I like Bloody Embarrassed better." She giggled, cheeks so tight from smiling that they hurt.

"Course you do." He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, and shook his head. "Anyway, I'm sorry I'm late. Got lost somehow on anilluminatedpath, my device was going absolutely mad at me-"

"Don't worry about it." She relieved him. "I wasn't here long."

He sighed, looking grateful. "Good. Well, just so you know, I was going to pull the chair out for you and everything, but you beat me to it."

"Grand romantic gesture." She raised an eyebrow, grinning.

"Exactly. I was going to sweep you off your feet, and say something really smart-"

"Next time, you'll just have to run faster, I guess." She teased him.

"I guess so."

The conversation pittered out and Jemma realized that she had been flirting,shamelessly flirtingwith an absolute stranger. Stiffening, she tried to fix her posture and school her features into something more acceptable for a first date. In all the confusion of his entrance, they had barely stopped to look at each other, so she did now, her eyes falling on his like they were drawn together by magnets. His were startlingly blue, the kind of blue that was usually reserved for springtime skies and sapphires, and she suddenly felt rather exposed by his piercing gaze. Grasping for distraction from them, her gaze fell instead to what he was wearing, and she was pleasantly surprised by the casualness he exuded. He wore a light green button down, tucked into a pair of dark slacks that brushed the tops of his worn-leather shoes. The light stubble on his cheeks did little to hide the rather eternal boyish quality of his cheeks, but his blond hair caught the candlelight and turned positively gold. Eyes meeting his again, she felt her cheeks reddening. His damneyeswere so captivating, she felt her heartbeat quickening beneath her skin. He was handsome, undeniably so, and until that very moment she hadn't quite realized how much. Judging by the way he was looking at her, she thought that he might have arrived on the very same conclusion. He pulled his chair out with a scrape and settled into it, squishing his hands in between his legs, nervously.

"So." She shifted, awkwardly.

"So." He repeated, something about her nervousness reflected in his eyes. His shoulders were slumped forward slightly, like he was embarrassed.

"I have to tell you something." She grimaced, and he raised his eyebrows.

"Oh?"

"You're my first." She admitted.

"Oh?" His voice rose an octave.

"On the System, I mean." She blushed furiously. "I've never donethisbefore." She gestured between them.

"Neither have I." Admitted Fitz, some tension flooding from his shoulders. "I'm so nervous-"

"God, me too-"

"And bloody starving. Wouldn't have blamed you if you had started without me." He told her, before looking around to catch the eye of a server. Successfully flagging one down, he turned back to her with a warm smile.

"I seriously considered it." She jested. "Do you even know how we order?"

"I reckon it's with these." He gestured to their devices. "Oi, Enoch, how do we-"

"Your order is part of a larger System-selected menu. It should be arriving shortly." Though similarly incorporeal like Jarvis, Fitz's coach was Scottish, like him.

"Brilliant." Fitz said, putting his device back in his pocket. Mirroring him, Jemma slid her device out of sight. "I hope it's steak." He mused.

"Mmm. I'd kill for a Salade Niçoise." She agreed.

As if on cue, a waiter appeared beside them and placed two steaming ceramic plates of food on the table, and then poured each of them a generous portion of red wine. "Thank you." Jemma muttered, impressed. Catching Fitz's eye under the arm of their server as he leaned across the table, Jemma stifled a giggle. It was clear from the glee written plainly on his face that he could barely wait to start.

"Enjoy." The server nodded curtly, then left the two of them to their food.

Perhaps Jemma should not have been surprised when she looked down at her plate and saw a massive niçoise salad, topped with eggs, tuna, and anchovies, but she was. Glancing across the table to Fitz, she was impressed by the sheer size of his steak and mushrooms, and the heaping portion of mashed potatoes. "It's like they read our minds." She stated, grabbing a fork.

"I think they did. The biometric scans of our brain waves log all the data for the System. It's almost creepy, but," he paused, taking a huge bite and his eyes rolled back in pleasure. "Right now, I couldn't care less. This is so good."

"Looks good." She agreed, tucking into her own. "Mmm."

"How is your salad?" He asked.

"Incredible." She said, taking another bite. "I've loved salade niçoise since I was a little girl on holiday in France with my parents. This is almost as good as that was."

He smiled, but it was difficult when his mouth was full. He swallowed and shrugged. "I don't have a story about my food. I just love steak."

"Good enough." She smiled. "It looks delicious."

"Want to try?" He asked, cutting into a piece and stabbing it with his fork. He lifted it gently off the plate, his other hand hovering underneath to keep any sauce drips from hitting the tablecloth.

Her eyes widened. "Absolutely."

He grinned as he passed the fork over the table to her, and she took a bite. The juices were incredible, and she hummed. Hiding her chewing behind her hand, she said, "That is really good."

"I hope that was allowed." He said, almost nervously. "I think that hostess wanted to kill me when I came in here before."

"Oh, Fitz." She managed to roll her eyes. "It's food sharing, not System-wide rebellion."

"I guess you're right. But if this steak asked, I'd probably rebel the System for it. I love it." He took another massive bite.

"Wow." She said, pretending to be hurt. "I'm starting to feel like a third wheel. I'll just leave you for your steak, shall I?"

"Ha ha." He said, sarcastically.

"So." She raised her wine glass to her lips. "What do you do, Fitz?"

They launched easily into conversation after that, like two old friends reconnecting for the first time in ages. What struck her most about Fitz as they talked and laughed and joked was that his intelligence managed to shine through the cracks as he talked, detailing complex processes of rocket design or fluid mechanics with ease. He was a good storyteller, kind, and endearingly awkward. He was also a wonderful listener; she never felt that their conversation was one sided or tipping in either of their favors. They shared the spotlight effortlessly, and as she talked Jemma felt as though layers of herself were crumbling off of her body and falling to the hardwood floors below. She wondered if, well,hoped, that he felt the same. The gentle reflection of her mind in his was a wonderful experience to behold, and as their dinner grew cold and as their wine glasses emptied, she had the overwhelming feeling that she was standing on the edge of a great precipice, poised for flight beside him. It was like they already knew each other, and Jemma was astounded at how comfortable she was in his company.

But soon, far too soon, the waiter who had served them so long ago reappeared at their table and told them that the restaurant was closing.

"Right, yeah, sorry." Fitz reached into his pocket for a wallet, and his eyebrows creased in confusion when he didn't find it.

"Your dinner is paid for, sir." The server assured him. "It is part of the System."

Jemma raised her eyebrows, impressed.

"Well, thank you." Fitz said, graciously. "It was delicious."

"Have a wonderful night, sir. Miss." The server bowed politely, and both Jemma and Fitz stood.

Time had gone so fast, she was startled to see that the rest of the restaurant's tables had been cleared and wiped down for the night, the chairs already flipped upside down on top of the bare tables. As they left, Fitz smiled in apology at the restaurant staff for dawdling so long.

Soon they were enveloped in the cool night air, and as they walked Jemma raised her eyes to the sky. It was a beautiful, clear night, albeit a bit chilly. The faint outline of the Milky Way was visible over the tops of the trees that lined their walkway, and Jemma smiled at the splendor of it all. Pointing it out to Fitz as they walked the softly lit path to the apartments, she watched him smile in her periphery.

"Sometimes it's so strange." He said, craning his neck to look up. "To see how small we are."

"We're not so small." She said. "They're made of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen . . . just like us. We're stardust, Fitz."

Fitz looked back down at her, with a softly affectionate look that flushed Jemma's chest with warmth from the inside out. She wondered if he evenknewhe did that, staring so reverently at her. "Anyway." She shifted, awkwardly. "Don't get me started on science or the stars. I'll never shut up."

"I might have to get you started." He told her, genuinely. "I like listening to you."

If it had not been so dark, Jemma was sure that he would have seen her cheeks flush. As she was about to open her mouth to speak, a breeze sighed through the trees and ruffled her hair and blouse. She shivered unconsciously, hating herself for being so naturally cold-blooded.

"You're cold." He noticed.

"I'm fine." She assured him, but he had already pulled his coat off his own shoulders, and tried to hand it to her. "No really, you don't need to-"

"I want to." He pushed the jacket into her hands, kindly. It was navy blue and quite warm beneath her fingers. "I couldn't pull the chair out for you, so at least give me this."

She sighed, biting down on her cheeks to keep from smiling at his gallantry. "If you insist."

She pulled it over her shoulders, and tried not to sigh as warmth flooded her body once more. But there was something else, something distinctly affectionate about his gesture that warmed her too. "So," she said, looking back at him. "Where do you reckon-- what?"

He was looking at her again with his penetrating blue gaze, and then he smiled and shook his head like he was clearing water from his ears. "Nothing. You look nice, is all."

She smiled, and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Thank you. It's a smart jacket."

"My mum bought it."

"Thank her for me." Jemma grinned.

They continued along their path, making delightfully easy conversation. The way was lit with pale gold fairy lights, and with every step, Jemma almost wished that they would never arrive anywhere, and that they could just walk together forever. Soon, though, they reached a small neighborhood of simple houses, all signified with a large metal number on the front porch. "How will we know which is ours?" Jemma asked, baffled by how similar all the homes looked.

Suddenly, both of their devices beeped in their pockets, and Jemma pulled hers out to see a number nine glowing on the screen. She looked at his, and it read the same. "Just a guess," he stated, sarcastically. "But I'm betting it's number nine."

"You're a proper genius." Jemma teased him. "What'll you think of next?"

"Working on world peace." He played along. "Another few days should crack it."

She laughed and they walked just a few streets longer until they found a simple house with a number nine posted outside. There was no knob on the door as they approached it, only a small panel beside the door with a glowing handprint.

"Will you open it, or shall I?" He asked, settling beside her and leaning his shoulder nonchalantly on the doorframe. He was so close that she stiffened, her stomach filling with nervous butterflies.

"Go on, then." She told him. He moved to put his hand on the screen to open it, but before he could Jemma stuck her own hand out. The door beeped, and Jemma heard it unlatch.

"You cheater." He bemoaned, playfully. Pulling the door open, he peeked his head in, looking slightly nervous. Jemma watched his face for any reactions to the inside, and her stomach sank when his face fell. "Oh no." He sighed.

"What?" She asked, worriedly. "What is it?"

"It's a shithole." He told her, sadly.

"No." She whined. "You're kidding."

His face lightened with mirth. "I am, yeah."

As he pushed the door open with a chuckle, she let her mouth fall open in exasperation at his joke. They both shuffled inside, then stopped as they took in their new living quarters. The sight inside was a welcome one; the room was decorated in a modern style, like most other things that she'd seen in the System's base, and was all geometric shapes and bright colors. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and there was a complimentary bottle of wine atop a gleaming metal countertop that was just begging to be uncorked. The couches in the living area were plush and comfortable looking, and Jemma smiled warmly at Fitz beside her.

He smiled back, and Jemma left his side to stride leisurely through the small quarters, impressed. The System had really outdone itself; this place was pristine, and practically dripping with romantic energy. It was all low lighting and warm colors, and smooth jazz played unbidden on the speakers in the walls. Jemma rounded a corner and her eyes fell upon a massive bed, covered in thick blankets, and suddenly Jemma had no space in her mind for any emotion other than nervousness. "There's just one bed." She announced, trying to keep her voice level.

"What?" He asked, turning from a complex wall panel that he'd been fiddling with. "Just one?"

"Yeah." She confirmed. "Come see for yourself."

He walked purposely to her side, and even though they weren't touching she could feel him beside her where he stopped. It made her skin tingle warmly to be so close to him. "Right." He said, sounding equally nervous. "That's a bit suggestive, isn't it?"

"A bit."

The silence hung between them and Jemma loathed it. They had spent the last few hours in delicious conversation, and now with the not-so-subtle System suggestion they sleep together, all relaxation had been thrown out the window. "Well, I'm going to say what we're both thinking." He announced.

Nerves ignited on her skin as a million thoughts ran through her head. "Oh?"

"This placeisa total shithole." He replied, deadpan.

Laughter bubbled out from inside her, and they were both chuckling again. Jemma was grateful for his joke; she found her anxiety dissipating slightly as they laughed together.

"Honestly, though." He said, after their laughs subsided. "I don't want you to feel . . . nervous, or anything." He scratched at the back of his neck. "I'm not going to, I don't know,forcemyself on you. I can take the couch."

"Oh, Fitz." She smiled. "Don't be silly. It's plenty big for the two of us."

"Are you sure?" He asked. "Because I really wouldn't mind-"

"I'm sure." She interrupted gently. "I mean, if youwant, we can talk about sex-" She said, as Fitz sputtered, ears reddening. "But I'm not ready yet, anyway, and from the color of your cheeks, it doesn't look like you are either. When it happens,ifit happens, I'd rather it happened naturally." She explained, trying desperately not to blush. "Not out of some...perceived obligation."

"Me too. Not that I wouldn't like to- you know, I mean, you are beautiful, and I can think of worse things-" He stuttered.

"Fitz." She stopped him. "I'd like it too. But not yet."

"Not yet." He echoed.

"We've got plenty of time." Jemma told him.

"Right."

Jemma looked out the front window, and saw the sky alight with stars. She heard the fire roaring in the hearth and the jazz music from the speakers. She looked at the soft blankets and pillows on the bed, and then to the bottle of wine on the counter. Finally, she snuck a glance back to Fitz beside her, who was worrying at his bottom lip and looking lost in thought. With that conversation out of the way, she was quite excited to spend the night by Fitz's side.

"Well, why don't you find some glasses for that." Jemma gestured to the wine. "And I'll change into my pyjamas. And we can talk about something other than sex. Dielectric polarization, perhaps?"

He grinned, his reverie breaking. "Okay."

Jemma went to the drawer on the side of the bed, and pulled it open to find a neatly folded pair of blue silk pyjamas that looked to be her exact size. Placing her device on the bedside table, she slipped quietly into the bathroom and changed. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she gave herself a little smile, egging herself on. This wasFitz; she had nothing to worry about.

Minutes later, she emerged almost cautiously from the bathroom, and in her absence Fitz had managed to change too. He looked very comfortable in his white t-shirt and flannel bottoms where he sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her. He looked up as she came out, and the deep blue of his eyes was almost unnerving. Then he smiled, and she smiled back, sliding onto the bed beside him. He handed her a full wineglass, which she accepted gratefully.

"So." He smiled.

"So." She echoed, playfully.

He grinned, and then almost effortlessly they were launched into conversation of the same caliber that they had been at the restaurant. They talked about the System and its complex engineering, managing to get sensitive biological information stored in an incredibly compact device. They talked about their childhoods before registering for the System, their parents, their hobbies, and their flaws. The clock on their bedside table clicked merrily away, neither of them ever stopping to breathe. Soon their wine ran out, and so Fitz left to put their glasses in the sink, and then returned only to start ceaseless conversation up again. Soon, both of them were laying on their backs and watching the ceiling fan, talking endlessly. Jemma couldn't remember a time when she had felt so close to someone else; it was almost as if they already knew each other.

"Must have been mental." Fitz was saying. "Before the System."

"How do you mean?" She asked.

"Never knowing who your match was. Imagine being a poor sod who's in love with his best friend, but doesn't think they'd be romantically compatible. And then imagine she felt the same. They'd both waste so much time like that." He explained, wistfully.

"That'd be horrible." She agreed.

"But the System fixes all of that. No waiting, no questions, just a perfect match. It's pretty impressive." He said.

"Mhm." She agreed, yawning. She glanced over at their clock, and smiled when she saw the time. "Gosh, it's nearly three am."

He looked over as well. "Blimey."

"I'm getting rather tired." She told him, rubbing her eyes. "Can we talk tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course." He turned his head to look at her. His face was half-hidden by the pillow, but she could still dimly see the warm eyes that were so beautiful to her. "Goodnight, Jemma."

"Night, Fitz." She smiled. Part of her wanted to pull him into her then and there, and to put her lips on his and kiss him softly and slowly. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about how his scruff would feel under her fingers, or how it would feel when he pulled her close, fingers digging into her skin. But she didn't; somehow, the emotional connection that they had spent the last few hours cultivating felt far too precious to ruin with her neglected sex drive. Still, the desire totouchhim was so strong that she felt her hand reaching out to him without conscious thought. Her hand grazed his under the blankets, and after a brief intake of breath, he intertwined their fingers warmly.

"Goodnight, Fitz." She said again, heart beating heavily. Her smile was threatening to spill over her cheeks, so she bit down on her lips. It was as if electricity was dancing up the skin of her arms, touching him.

"You already said that." He reminded her softly.

"I meant it." She closed her eyes.

"You're wonderful, Jemma." She heard him say, barely a whisper above the pillowcase.

She fell asleep that night with Fitz's hand in hers, his thumb rubbing gently over her knuckles, and the warmth of his company deep in her chest.

She woke blearily, four hours later, with her head on his chest and their legs intertwined. White, early morning light filled their apartment, and a horrible beeping sound rang in her ears every couple of seconds. Fitz shifted underneath her, his hand tightening on hers where it lay on his chest. "Wuzgoinon?" He asked, sleepily.

"Dunno." She replied, not wanting to move. He was so warm underneath her, and she was so relaxed. "An alarm or something."

"Turn it off." He whined. "Then come back to bed."

She grinned sleepily, and forced herself to rise from his embrace. It was impressive, really, how tightly wound they had become in the middle of the night. Their legs had been intertwined, along with their hands, and if her sore neck was any indication, she had long since forfeited her pillow for his chest. His other arm had been wrapped around her waist, and as she stood, that arm reached unconsciously across the warm mattress after where she'd gone. Hair a tangled mess in her eyes, she looked at him where he lay on the bed, and her heart surged with affection. She couldn't wait for the day ahead; somehow, in her sleep, she had planned it all out: they would go on a walk through the green rolling hills of the System base, perhaps hand in hand, then would return home and she would make dinner. Then tonight, perhaps, they would capitalize on the romantic aura of the room and the intended use of their double mattress, and fall into each other with bright smiles and light hearts. That was, of course, if she could shut off the damned alarm.

After rummaging in drawers and under blankets, she soon realized that there was no alarm in the room, and that the beeping was coming from the handheld devices that they had both brought into the house. She picked hers up in her hand, loving the smoothness of it, and looked at the screen to turn it off.

"Oh." She said, tears springing to her eyes. Looking at it with a dull ache in her chest, Jemma returned to their bedside.

"Turn that bloody thing off." Fitz groaned, eyes still closed.

"Fitz-" She started, haltingly.

He opened his eyes then, perhaps hearing her sadness in her voice, and she was startled by how blue his eyes were in the morning light. "What is it?"

"It's the expiry." She told him, throat tight. "We've got to vacate the house and go back to the single quarters."

"You're kidding." Suddenly awake, he sat up straight, and reached for his device on their bedside table. Looking at it, his face fell quickly. "No-"

"I'm sorry." She apologized, feeling unspeakably foolish. "We should have checked the expiry before."

"No, don't be sorry." He stood, gripping her arm.

"I just can't believe it." She said.

"Believe what?"

"That we only had twelve hours." Jemma said, regretfully. "Iwish, well, I thought we'd have had more. We were getting on so well. "

He grabbed his device, and watched as the red warning light blared on their devices.Relationship expired, it read. His face was sad too, a reflection of the blue mood that had poisoned her heart. Hadn't they been intertwined peacefully, just minutes ago?

They stood and dressed quietly, back into the same clothes they had worn the night before. Fitz's light green shirt was rather crumpled, and she surpressed the desire to smooth some of the creases on his chest. They walked past their empty wine bottle and discarded glasses on their way out, Jemma's heart twisting painfully in her chest to remember that their good times were now only memories.

The air outside was cool when they left their house. Jemma wrapped herself tightly with her arms, wishing she could wear Fitz's sport coat again. "Well." She heard him say, breaking her train of thought.

"Well." She echoed, sadly.

"I guess this is it." He said.

"Yeah."

Their devices both beeped angrily at them, as if prodding them to finish their conversation as soon as possible. Jemma had never hated anything as much as she hated that device in that moment, and wanted to chuck it away from her.Faraway from her. The idea that they were just...over, and that they'd never flow so seamlessly between each other again, was heartbreaking.

"So long, Fitz." She said, reaching out her hand to him, trying to keep her voice steady.

He clasped it in his, giving it a small shake. She was forcefully transported back a few hours, when they had lain face to face, and had clasped hands before falling asleep. In this blue moment, it wasn't a welcome memory.

"So long, Jemma." He replied. His eyes were a stormy grey.

Then before she could do anything, he leaned in and pressed his lips to her cheek. It was soft and unexpected, and she felt the roughness of his stubble as he pulled away, looking sheepishly at the ground. "Sorry." He apologized, shaking his head and dropping her hand. "It was over. I shouldn't have-"

She felt like her heart was bursting. "Hey, don't be sorry."

"Maybe we'll get paired again." He tried.

Dimly, Jemma didn't think so, but she played along. "Yeah, of course."

"We could see each other again. Somehow." He was grasping at straws, and she knew it.

"Yeah." Bizarrely, Jemma felt her eyes filling with tears. Though it had only been a few hours, she couldn't shake the feeling that Fitz wasitfor her, and that she had just lost the match of a lifetime.

"Well, if we had had more time-" he began.

"Don't." She stopped him. "It's too much-"

"-you totally would have gotten it." He finished with a flourish, his face breaking into a weak smile. "We'd have used that bed, like, all night."

Laughter bubbled up in her chest and she opened her mouth in surprise. "You bastard!" She sputtered, exasperatedly. "Saying that after it's over, ohyou-"

"-just looked sosad-" He chuckled.

"-playing with my emotions. Honestly. Now that's all I'm going to think about,damnyou-" She brandished sarcastic fists at him.

He laughed and so did she, and she figured they must look ridiculous arguing in front of an empty house at seven in the morning, wearing crumpled date clothes. But their devices were now screaming at them to part ways, and Jemma wouldn't have been surprised if armed System-police had shown up beside them to pull them apart. Smiling sadly and laughter fading, Jemma looked at her shoes.

"You would have." She told him. "Gotten it too, I mean."

"Right." He answered, his own voice sounding thick. "Thanks, I guess."

She glanced back up and put on a brave smile. "Well, goodbye Fitz. Good luck with...everything."

He nodded. "Yeah, you too."

They kept eye contact for a moment longer until Jemma couldn't stand another second of it. She turned from him and walked back down the path that they had walked together just the previous evening, and found that it wasn't even half as beautiful when she was alone.


	2. round 2

Chapter Text

An emptiness hung around Jemma for the rest of the day, even though it was as lovely a day as there had ever been. Everywhere she turned, she saw Fitz and all that they could have been; she found herself turning excitedly to mention something to him, only to find his space occupied by a lonely spring breeze. It was strange, her logical brain argued, that after so short a time, she already felt so close to him. Not for the first time, she wondered if they had known each other already, perhaps outside the System. She harbored such a powerful desire to never be without him, that it only seemed possible.

Jarvis beeped again that evening, as she sat alone in a grassy field. She had been picking at the green shoots, dazed, and tossing them away from her. All around her crossed legs, the ground was growing bald, and as she was torn from her thoughts, she felt a ping of regret.

"Sorry." She whispered to the ground, wiping earth off her fingers. She picked up the device, and checked the name that flashed on the screen. Part of her was surprised that another match had been selected so quickly, and was happy to see what the System had in store for her next. Another, quieter part of her wanted to chuck the device into the trees, not ready quite yet to officially say goodbye to Fitz.

But she stood, sighing, and set off to change. Mechanically, she pulled on a dress and a pair of sensible shoes, forfeiting the Doc Martens that she had worn the day before for a pair of flats. Somehow, the Doc Martens reeked of Fitz and their casual date. Jarvis told her to meet her new match, a man named Will Daniels, at table 35 at the very same restaurant where she and Fitz had dined in the night before, which almost felt like an insult to him and their connection.

She walked the same path to the restaurant, and found herself less nervous but more apprehensive than before. The hostess took her device, scanned it, then took her to the table, identically decorated from the date with Fitz. Unlike the previous night, when Fitz had swooped in out of breath and late, Jemma was surprised that her match was already there. Pushing her thoughts away, Jemma smiled at him and he stood.

"Hi. I'm Will." He told her, his voice gravely. He was American.

"Jemma." She reached out and took his hand. "Jemma Simmons."

"You look beautiful." He told her, and she looked at the ground, feeling her cheeks flush slightly.

"You look nice too." She said. "Have you been here long?"

They both settled into their chairs, and Will smiled. "Fourteen years."

Surprised, hand freezing on her wine glass, Jemma blinked. "What?"

"I've been in the System for fourteen years. Apparently I'm hard to find a match for." He replied, grimacing.

"Oh." She managed, not quite sure how to respond. She fidgeted in her seat, and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Ohhh. You meant the restaurant, didn't you?" He realized.

Jemma's little nod was all the answer he needed.

"Sorry. Although, honestly, I'm glad we got that out of the way." He reached out to the wine bottle and uncorked it, pouring her a large portion.

"Right. Well, I'm fairly new." She told him. "Only had one match before this."

"Oh." He responded knowingly. "Gotcha."

The silence that stretched after her confession was rather awkward, and she cleared her throat and tried to smile at him. He wasn't unattractive, honestly. He had large shoulders and gentle brown eyes, and a thick beard that made him look older than he probably was. His brown hair stuck up around his forehead, and his button-down didn't fit him very well, but he smiled kindly at her and she tried to relax. He was her match, after all. The System probably knew her better than she knew herself; he deserved a chance.

"Could we check the expiry?" Jemma found herself asking.

"Yeah." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his device. "On three? One, two-"

"Three." Jemma finished for him, pressing her thumb on the darkened screen. Immediately a number popped up, already timing their minutes together.

"Wow." Will spoke before she could get the words out.

"Six months." She agreed. "That's quite a long time."

"You and I are destined to be pretty close, I think." He raised a wine glass in a toast to her. "To us"

She mirrored him with just a hint of disappointment. "To us."

They talked amicably for an hour or two in between bites of food, and Jemma decided that six months with him weren't going to be horrible. In fact, she found him rather sweet, although not quite as intelligent as Fitz had been. He was a good listener, and agreed with her on most accounts, and in fact, she silently decided that she and Will would make good friends after all. Granted, she wasn't entirely sure if she would have ever chosen him as a romantic partner herself, but that, of course, was what the System was for. Every brain wave for the next six months would bring her one step closer to her match.

Will kissed her that night, and she didn't fight it. Instead she kissed him back and ran her fingers through his hair, and they fell into bed together. Since they were going to be together for six months, Jemma thought it was only logical that they become physically intimate as soon as possible. In between his scratchy kisses and her exaggerated moans, Jemma tried not to let her mind wander to Fitz, or to what he was doing. But she found such a thing to be impossible. Had he found his match already, all thoughts of her abandoned? Or was he thinking of her, pressed against the slim body of someone else? She imagined Fitz's hands grasping hers above her pillow, and the slow grind of his hips against hers, and the way he would sigh her name with an accent that twisted at his lips, and soon Jemma was gasping into Will's ear and arching her back into him.

Maybe it wasn't fair to Will that she had set him up to an impossible standard, but by the same token she couldn't fight what she felt for her first match. She fell asleep that night to Will's heavy snores, and in a last-ditch attempt to ignite feeling in her, to ignitesomething,Jemma reached across the mattress and clasped her hand in his. He didn't stir, and Jemma's heart sank as she remembered the way Fitz had run his thumb across her knuckles, and how warmth had flooded her chest from the inside out. Holding Will's hand didn't feel like anything.

After that, she resigned herself to six months with Will and no more.

Whenever a True Match was made in the System, it was cause for a massive celebration, and so four months into Will and Jemma's relationship, they walked hand in hand to an outdoor courtyard in the shadow of a massive stone building. It was decorated beautifully; lights were strung from trees and streamers of light pink and red dangled artfully from bunches of white balloons. There were a few round tables covered in delicate white cloth and little paper doilies and hearts, and then a massive table of food pushed along the outer wall. Jemma smiled looking at it; there were bowls of fresh fruit and other finger foods, and a few steaming serving platters of steak, potatoes, pasta, and fresh bread. Circling through the throng of well-dressed couples were servers in bow ties, holding up trays of bubbling champagne with floating strawberries. Will handed Jemma one just as the service really began, and a happy couple mounted the stage before them, beaming from ear to ear.

Everyone clapped politely, but Jemma began to tune out the speech as soon as it began. Finished with her glass, Jemma glanced guiltily at Will's and found it to be still full. Sneaking his glass out of his hands and exchanging it for hers, Jemma took a gulp of Will's champagne, thinking that Will was, in fact, rather good at playing a resigned boyfriend.

"-believe in the System!" The woman was saying. "It really works!"

"I'm so lucky to have found her-" The man added.

Rolling her eyes, Jemma finished her champagne, and put it on the tray of a passing server. Eyes scanning the throng, Jemma took in all of the other couples. Most all of them were watching the service happily, hanging off the arms of their partners, and Jemma fought the urge to scoff loudly. There were too many light colors for Jemma's liking, and she hated how everyone's undivided attention was on the couple of the hour. Jemma couldn't imagine ever wearing pastel blue like them, nor acting so hopelessly lovesick in public, and the puppy eyes of lovey-dovey couples began to make her feel slightly ill; being with Will had made her terribly cynical, she realized. Then, idea forming, she looked to the snack table and found it to be blissfully ignored.

"I'll be right back." She hissed into Will's ear, and he nodded.

She weaved in between couples until she reached the snack bar. Grabbing a plate, she began to fill it with everything: green beans, melon, lemon rice, brie, and crackers. She bit into a cheese-smeared piece of french bread and closed her eyes to hum in appreciation, the taste light and savory on her tongue.

"Hey, you." Someone nudged her elbow, and she turned, surprised.

"Fitz!" She exclaimed, covering her mouth as she finished chewing. She looked around them, quickly, to see if her outburst had interrupted the ceremony. At least for now, no one was paying her any attention, not even Will.

Fitz, for his part, looked wonderful; bathed in the afternoon sunlight, his hair was a faint gold and she could see the flecks of green in his blue eyes. With his hands in his pockets, he looked happy and at ease, and her whole heart flushed at the sight. Before she could stop herself, she launched herself into him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He laughed as he responded just as eagerly, pulling her to him tightly. Being so close to him, Jemma was forcefully transported back to their night together, and reminded how comfortable she had been when she had awoken on top of his chest in the early morning. He smelled the same now, like aftershave and clean laundry, and she breathed him in.

When they broke apart, she thought she might be actually glowing. Her smile stretched so tightly that it hurt, and she reached out to punch his arm fondly, unable to keep apart from him for a single moment. "How have you been?"

"Good." He told her. "Starving, though."

"As usual." She joked. "I actually thought of you when we came in, there's a serving platter of steak at the end of the table that I bet you'd enjoy."

His eyes brightened and his mouth opened. "You're joking."

Grinning, she shook her head. She followed him, chuckling, as he made a beeline for the food, and watched almost exasperatedly as he piled it all up on his plate.

"Honestly, I don't know where you put it all." She joked, impressed, as he tucked in. "You're so skinny."

"Thanks?" He said quizzically, stuffing some food in his mouth.

"No, I mean it in a good way. You're fit." She clarified, and then flushed. She hoped he couldn't tell by her expression how much she liked his body, and how often she fantasized about his lean muscles straining against her.

"Right." The tips of his ears had turned pink, but he pressed on tactfully. "How have you been? Are you here with someone?"

Jemma turned and scanned the crowd of bright faces until she found him. Pointing, she said, "Yes. He's just there, in the blue."

"Hmm."

"His name is Will." Jemma explained, turning back to Fitz with a smile that felt ingenuine. "We've been together for four months now."

Craning his neck to get a good look at him, Fitz shrugged and scrunched his nose, feigning unimpressed. "He's got a hog face."

Giggling, Jemma slapped his arm and he exaggerated his painful reaction. "He does not!"

"What? I'm notsupposedto like him, am I? Being a past boyfriend of yours and all." He justified himself.

"It was only 12 hours."Jemma reminded him, her ears ringing with the wordboyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriendon a loop.

"Still. Look at his puffy lips. I bet he's a horrible kisser-"

"Why don't you go see for yourself?" Jemma taunted, playing along.

"Maybe I will. Maybe he'smymatch." Fitz chuckled.

"Stop that." She closed her eyes, trying to brandish the image of the two of them together. "I just ate."

Fitz laughed and Jemma sighed, speaking more quietly so as not to be overheard. "So maybe he's not the best kisser but he's…" she cast her mind around for the right word. "Great."

Raising an eyebrow, Fitz repeated her sarcastically. "Great?"

"Great." She repeated, less sure now.

With one sceptical glance from Fitz she sighed, deflating. Of course, even after months apart, Fitz could see right through her. "Okay, he's not great. But I'm trying to make the best of it. Got two months left anyway." She told him, lowering her voice.

Fitz nodded kindly, all hints of mocking gone. He nudged her elbow, gently. "Hey, I get it. No need to explain. Sorry."

But Jemma had forgotten how easy it was to be open with Fitz, and she found her next words falling out of her mouth without much thought. "I miss you, Fitz."

For a second, he was quiet. The courtyard around them erupted in applause as the true match couple embraced onstage in a shower of pink balloons, but he just blinked. The water in the lake beside them sparkled with sunlight, and the trees sighed in a light breeze. Glancing up nervously, she was suddenly caught in his blue eyes, and the soft reverent gaze of his that was so endearing. "I miss you too." He told her, without a trace of irony. "I've been with Aida for months, and haven't felt a fraction with her of what I felt with you."

"Same with Will." She admitted. "It's unfair."

"It's the System." Fitz said, softly.

"I know. 99.9% match, guaranteed." Jemma repeated the slogan, mockingly. "Doesn't change the fact that I miss you."

"Me neither."

Sadly, Jemma smiled. "So...where is this Aida? Do I get to say she has a hog face?"

Fitz grinned, and looked around the crowd. Finding her, he pointed, and Jemma looked at her with some jealousy. The woman was gorgeous, tall, and skinny, with brown hair that curled lightly around her shoulders. Not a single hair was out of place. In fact, she didn't look to have a single blemish, and could have fit right in with the models that walked fashion runways. "Wow." Jemma conceded, almost angry. "She's beautiful."

"Yeah, I suppose. But she's kinda hard to talk to. Sort of robotic, if you know what I mean. And yeah, she's stunning but I prefer a classical beauty, myself." He shrugged, looking back at Jemma with a playful smile. Then something caught his eye and he nodded with his chin, moving like he wanted to duck behind her. "Oh, incoming."

Turning, Jemma saw Will approaching them, a cool smile on his face. "Ready to go, Jems?" He asked.

"I suppose." She lied.

"Who's this?" Will asked, his chest puffing out in an act of unconscious defense.

"Oh, right!" Jemma hastened to make introductions. "Will, this is Fitz. Fitz, Will."

"Oh, so this is the famous Fitz!" Will's smile looked ingenuine. "The first match."

"Yes." Jemma confirmed, feeling slightly awkward. "We just bumped into each other at the snack table. Fitz could never resist a good steak platter."

"What can I say, I'm a growing boy." Fitz shrugged. "But I should be getting back to Aida. Nice to meet you, Will."

Will gave a curt nod to Fitz, who responded in turn. As he left, Jemma gripped Fitz's elbow tightly in farewell, and he gave her an encouraging smile. It felt almost as if they had exchanged a secret with their eyes. Then he slipped from her grasp and left, and Jemma wished that she had said more. Cursing herself, she felt silly for trying to conveyanythingas powerful as a goodbye with just a tight squeeze of her hand. Jemma and Will made their way back up the path to their house, and she wondered how she felt simultaneously lighter and heavier than she had in months. Fitz made her feel like she was dancing atop of the clouds, but she deflated at the thought of two more eternal months with Will. Maybe then, after two more months,maybesomething good would happen. She didn't want to hold her breath.

In the end, Jemma watched the countdown clock on her device like it was her prison sentence. With every day that clicked by, with every nothing kiss she and Will shared, with every fitless sleep, she told herself that she was getting closer to the end. And when it finally did, she was surprised at how little she felt. Will was kind up until the last moment, but it was clear to both of them that they had not been each other's true match. They wished each other well, and bid each other goodbye, and suddenly the sunshine on Jemma's back was warmer, brighter, and more beautiful. She had barely walked away from their shared house when her device beeped.

"You have another match." Jarvis said.

Heart falling, Jemma looked at the name on the screen.Milton Stephens,it read.

A whole two months later, Jemma bid goodbye to Milton. She held her device in her hand and willed it not to beep again, just so that she could have some peace and quiet. Milton had talked endlessly, and she had barely gotten a word in in eight weeks. And what was worse, he had been utterly clueless in bed, and Jemma felt as though she hadn't been properly happy for the better part of a year. Since Fitz, she thought hopelessly.

Her device beeped, and she turned it angrily over in her hand, already hating whatever name was sure to come up on the screen. Then suddenly, where her body had just been so numb, it was shivering with warmth.Leo Fitz,the screen showed.


	3. match

Chapter Text

Jemma jiggled her foot nervously under the table waiting for Fitz. In truth, it felt like her heart was beating too frantically to be sustainable, and she thought that if he showed up late again she might just be dead by the time he arrived. Surrounded by roses and candlelight, she wondered what she would do when she saw him again. Would she smile at him? Would she cry? What if they were only matched for twelve hours again, what would she possibly do then?

Then she saw him part the customers in the restaurant, walking briskly to her table, and suddenly Jemma was standing and running towards him. She tackled him in a hug around his neck, and buried her face in the familiar scent of his jacket. He pulled her tight, seeming to understand her emotion as his own hands gripped at her cardigan. Tears began to slip out of her eyes without her meaning them to, and she burrowed deeper into him, her breath jumping.

"Hey." He whispered, gently. "Jemma, hey."

He pulled them apart, and grabbed her chin in his hands, eyes scanning hers to see if she was alright. His were ringed with concern as his fingers combed gently through her hair. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." She hiccupped, quite unconvincingly. Tears rolled down her face like raindrops in a torrential storm.

He brushed his thumb softly over her cheeks. "Let's get out of here, yeah?"

She nodded, sniffing and feeling inundated with the powerful emotions. Fitz intertwined their fingers warmly as they left the restaurant, only pausing to briefly ask for their food to go. They hardly spoke as they walked the now-familiar path to the houses, tears streaming down Jemma's face the whole way, and Fitz unlatched their door with his free hand and pulled her inside. He helped her into the couch and then kneeled in front of her, taking her hands in her lap.

"Jemma, what's wrong?" He asked. His eyebrows creased on his forehead, looking worried. "Was it your last relationship? Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head violently. "No. Nothing like that."

He ran his thumb over her knuckles like he had the first night they had been together and Jemma sniffed, embarrassed by her outburst but not entirely sure how to stop it. Her voice shook as she answered the gentle questioning look on his face. "I've just felt so alone these past months. I've had two relationships that felt like prison cells, and I just, I'm so relieved to be back with you, but I'm terrified that it won't last like last time-"

"It won't be like last time." He answered confidently.

Her eyes spilled over. "You don't know that. We should just check the expiry now, get it over with-"

"No, I don't want to." Fitz said, shaking his head earnestly.

Her eyes filled with another wave of tears. "But when it ends-"

"If it ends, then we'll know we spent every moment enjoying each other's company." He told her, gently. "I don't want to treat us like a countdown. That's just as bad."

She nodded, and she felt a tear drip off her chin and onto her lap. Fitz reached up and with the pad of his thumb and brushed another one away. "I've been lonely too." He told her, voice shaking and fragile. "Spent eight months with Aida-"

"Gosh, I didn't even ask I'm so sorry-"

"It's okay." He interrupted. "I don't really want to talk about her, anyway. We're here now. It's just us."

She nodded, and took a deep breath. The beautiful room, which she hadn't noticed in her spiral into misery, was softly lit and bigger than the last two that Jemma had stayed in. Every surface in the room glittered, from the stainless steel appliances, to the delicately sanded wooden tables, to the glossy wallpaper that caught the light of the dancing fire. Jemma looked back at Fitz and smiled, grateful and relieved to be next to him. "I'm sorry for crying." She told him, feeling that her outburst was fully behind her now.

"It's nothing." He promised her. "Are you hungry?"

"Are you?" She asked, remembering his appetite.

He chuckled. "Always."

She almost snorted, but her laugh was still slightly weak from her tears. "Typical."

He stood, and smiled at her. "Why don't you go wash up, and then we'll eat?"

She stood too, and took a final breath to steady herself. "Sounds good."

Finally alone, the cool water on her face from the bathroom tap refreshed her more than she could say, and as she patted her hands dry on a plush towel, she felt a lightness expand from her heart and outward, filling the room with joy. After all of it, all the waiting and the loneliness, she was back with Fitz. Finally. She left the bathroom after giving herself a smile in the mirror, and joined him at the dinner table. He had set a candle on the polished wood, and had already poured them each a glass of wine. As she walked in, he pulled back one of the chairs and she blushed faintly, remembering how he had missed his chance to do so the first time they had met. Sliding into her chair, he sat across from her and gave her a smile. It was so romantic, so kind, so Fitz, that her heart ached and all of the trivial comments she had been planning to make flew right out of her head.

"I don't know what to say." She said, a little overwhelmed.

"You don't have to say anything." He promised, leaning forward. "If you want, I can talk for a while."

"Please." She said, grabbing her wine. "Tell me about a new design you've been working on or something."

"Well, now that you mention it, there is this drone I've been tinkering on in the System Shop-" He began, and Jemma dug into her food, suddenly ravenous. And so, their endless conversation began again and Jemma was struck by how good they both were at talking, joking, even flirting. Their candles burned lower and lower as they talked and talked and talked, and as the night wore on she found herself more and more captivated by everything he said and did. He bit his lip when he was nervous, laughed with his head thrown back, and sometimes got so animated while talking that she could follow a conversation just by watching his hands. As they finished their food and wine, Fitz put his palm on the table between them, almost absentmindedly, and without thinking she reached forward and clasped it in her own. It was such a natural impulse to her, the desire to be closer to him. To touch him.

He kept talking with a faint smile on his face, and that was it, really, for Jemma. If he could hold her and a conversation at the same time, then he was verging on perfect. Still deep in discussion, they did their dishes and then walked into their bedroom. Both of them fell quiet looking at the single queen-sized mattress, the same way they had the first time they'd been together. However, unlike their first date, Jemma was wholeheartedly less opposed to the idea of sleeping with him. She chanced a glance at him to find that he was already looking at her, with a gaze that she hadn't seen from him before. It was deep and dark blue, and Jemma could see the way his chest rose and fell rapidly.

"Are you ready?" She asked, heart hammering.

"Yeah." He managed, his voice breathless. "Are you-"

He didn't get to finish. Jemma launched herself at him and grabbed his cheeks, pressing their lips together like they couldn't waste any more time. Perhaps they couldn't. After all, they hadn't checked the expiry. They could have mere seconds left, and Jemma wouldn't dare spend another minute of it apart from him. While he stumbled back at first from the sheer force of her kiss, he responded back almost immediately, fingers digging into her waist and pulling her closer as he kissed her just as passionately as she was kissing him. She ran her fingers through his curls and down his neck and across his chest like she couldn't decide where she wanted to touch him most, but he didn't seem to mind. He turned them so that Jemma's body backed up to the wall, and pressed every inch of himself as close to her as he possibly could be. He tasted as sweet as red wine, his lips soft and insistent on hers, and it made her whole chest feel like it was glowing. She pulled his bottom lip into her mouth and ran her tongue along it, and had trouble fighting off the smile that his surprised groan inspired. But he gave as good as he got, and with hands slipping under the soft fabric of her shirt, she felt his fingers warm her skin as they grazed up and down the small of her back.

"Fitz." She sighed into his ear as he kissed down the column of her throat.

"Say that again." He commanded, running his tongue across her skin.

"Fitz." She moaned, his lips reaching a particularly sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder that he set his teeth into gently.

Hands fumbling at her shirt, he pulled the fabric over her head and she raised her arms to make the movement easier. He had only a moment to let his gaze dance over her bare skin before she was pulling off his jacket and tossing it to the floor. Secretly, she loved the way his shirt tightened across his chest as he discarded the jacket, and almost immediately she started with his buttons. Groaning in frustration when she couldn't get them off as quickly as she'd hoped, she growled, "Damn shirt."

He chuckled, and then let go of her to help unbutton him. With him working the top buttons and her the bottom ones, the work was finished significantly more efficiently than it had when it was just her. But their hurried lust had faded slightly in the quest to undress him, and when his chest was finally bare, he glanced up into her brown eyes with a gaze that walked the perfect line between nerves, passion, and gentleness. Then and there, Jemma decided to take her time with him, savoring every glance and every kiss.

Jemma pulled his shirt off of his arms slowly, and his dark eyes followed her every move. When their lips joined again, it was deep, not rough, and with every stroke of his tongue on hers she felt shivers run up and down her entire body, her heart filling with light. Finally, she thought, letting him kiss her senseless. Grazing lips and gentle sighs and butterfly touches overwhelmed her, and she broke apart from his honeyed lips just long enough to press their foreheads together and watch his heartbeat leaping in his chest.

"I've wanted this for so long." She admitted, touching his lower lip with the pad of her thumb.

"Me too." He agreed, pressing a soft kiss to her palm.

She pulled him back in for another languid kiss, and he led her away from the wall to lay her down on the soft mattress. He ran his fingers gently across her cheek as they stopped for breath, his touch tender and seeking. Then, slowly, his hands trailed across her bare belly and under her breast, nearly burning her skin with their every move. With a nudge of guidance from Fitz, she lifted her back an inch or so off the mattress so he could reach the clasp of her bra. It unhooked with a click and he tossed it away with hungry eyes, already leaning back into her skin to kiss her. She felt like she was being imprinted by him, and that his romantic kisses were brushing away all of the stress and the loneliness that she had been drowning in for months. When he finally took her breast in his palm, she arched up into him and pulled on his shoulders to get his body closer. Gasping quietly, she breathed to him, "We can have fun later."

Not quite hearing her, he wrapped his lips around her nipple and ran his tongue across the top. She moaned, feeling like her veins had been filled with starlight, but then she took his face in her hands to bring him forcefully back up to her lips. "I want you." She told him, in between quick kisses that took her breath away. "All of you. You can do this later, I'm ready now."

With eyes blown dark, he finally seemed to get her meaning. "Okay." His voice was lower than she ever remembered it being. He kissed her again, long and passionate, before pulling back enough to brush their noses together.

Before long, he was buried deep inside her and their bodies were moving in unison, as close as their minds and hearts had been for months. Hips rising up to meet his, Jemma found an inexplicable joy in just watching him rock above her, his face taking on a myriad of expressions as he thrust into her again and again. His eyebrows furrowed and he never let his eyes wander from hers, but his heavy breathing and the awed expressions falling from his mouth were more than entertaining as he lit her entire body up with pleasure. She shifted under him, just a little bit, but the movement was enough to change the angle of his thrusts and both of them moaned outright. He was beautiful and so loving to her, more tender than she had ever imagined him, and she brought a hand up to trace against his cheek, almost like she was afraid that he would disappear. As he moved, grinding powerfully into her, she could feel the pressure beginning inside her like inside a volcano. They built the pleasure slowly, lovingly, with lips that barely touched and hands that gripped tight enough to leave a mark. The coil inside her seemed almost ready to break, but then he reached down and started rubbing her clit with his thumb, and Jemma suddenly realized why it was called making love when the affection in her heart grew to bursting. He was so in tune with her; her heart and her body seemed to belong to him and his. She wondered if he knew how precarious her hold on reality had become.

"Jemma. God, Jemma-" He sighed, his eyelids fluttering closed for a moment of pure ecstasy as he increased the speed of his thrusts.

She agreed, her breath catching. His every movement was filling her to the brim and her name on his lips filled her with electricity that sparked across her body, and she immediately understood the reason why Fitz had asked her to repeat herself earlier. On his lips, her name was the most intimate word in existence.

"Yes, Fitz! Yes, yes-"

She could feel herself tightening around him and could feel her toes beginning to curl on the white sheets, and with the rest of her strength she reached up and grabbed his jaw, bringing his mouth back to hers as the pressure inside her finally burst. She moaned into his soft lips as her body arched into his, his final disjointed thrusts becoming uncoordinated as she threaded her hands through his curls and sighed contentedly. Her body rose and fell like an ocean wave, twitching against and around him as he rode her pleasure to the end of the line. He muffled a strangled yell against her tongue, his hips grinding against hers one last time until he too came.

They stayed together, wrapped tightly, for a few moments. Fitz lay against her chest, breathing heavily. Smiling, Jemma brought her hands down to his back, stroking it gently until she felt his body fully relax and his quiet breathing told her that he had fallen asleep.


	4. i love you, goodbye

Chapter Text

Their devices didn't wake them the next morning, and instead of being forcefully pulled from sleep like she had before, Jemma woke up naturally in Fitz's arms, enveloped in his warmth. It was the most peaceful she had been in a long while; her body was pleasantly sore from the previous night's activities, and as she watched sunlight slant through his eyelashes, she let the memories wash over her like the tide.

After their lovemaking, she had nudged him awake and they had separated for just a few minutes to clean up. He had insisted that Jemma take the first shower before going to bed, but before the hot water had even steamed up the glass, Fitz had slid in beside her and had kissed her shoulder lovingly as the water droplets had beaded on their skin. They had giggled and kissed and the perfumed air had smelled like lavender soap. His curls had flattened on his head with the dampness and he had looked so arresting that Jemma had pulled on his lower lip with her teeth and had pushed him against the white tile, cheekily smirking before going to her knees in front of him. Hearing him,tastinghim...Jemma had never been so eager, nor so giddy to be someone's lover.

It was all fair play, though. As they had finally left the shower, Jemma's hair still wet and humid air still pouring from the bathroom, Fitz had lain Jemma down on the bed with eyes that almost burned her with their intensity, and had kissed the inside of her thighs while trailing one hand down her middle. Her hands had clutched the sheets as she had writhed against his tongue, his lips taking her apart from the very center as his other hand had pumped in and out of her, glistening with her arousal.

When they had finished, Fitz had climbed up the mattress and had nuzzled his nose affectionately against hers. They had hardly said another word all night, but they hadn't needed to; Jemma was surprised to find that she was as comfortable in silence with Fitz as she had been in conversation. He had pulled her close and she had kissed the underside of his jaw goodnight and that was how they had spent the night: in between sleep and dreams, so happy that it felt surreal.

Now, she watched him wake, his body shifting against her as he sighed sleepily. Raising his hand to her lips, she kissed the back of it. "Good morning."

He opened a bright pair of eyes, a smile at the corners of his lips, and just like that, Jemma fell in love. In a haze of wonder, she pondered if, truly, love had been that simple. If, at the end of the day, all it had taken was golden sunlight and blond curls and blue eyes andFitzfor her to abandon all of her better judgement. The logical part of her mind told her that love could never be that effortless, but the emotion flowed out of her heart and warmed her straight to her bones without any conscious thought. She didn't know what he was thinking as he looked at her, looking like a painting, but he pulled her face up to his and kissed her slowly, languidly, like they had all the time in the world. She felt his stubble graze her fingers as she trailed her hands down his jaw.

"Morning." He said, finally.

"Sleep well?" She asked.

"Like a baby." He replied, readjusting slightly against the pillows. She scooted closer into his arms and he pulled her hand to his chest. "I could get used to this." He told her, kissing the top of her head.

She grinned. "Me too."

That was the first moment where she felt fear. Not of Fitz or of their undeniable connection, but that the System would take him away from her and assign her to someone else. But in a moment where she was wrapped in him, listening to his voice rumble in his chest, she found the strength to push it away and focus only on the happiness that flowed through her as easily as the blood in her veins. But fear had a tendency to linger, and it did then, like a bad aftertaste on her tongue, despite her best efforts.

They somehow managed to get up, and they made themselves breakfast. Then they changed and grabbed a picnic basket and a pile of books from their bookshelf, and walked hand in hand to a grassy field beside a shimmering lake. Beneath wisteria branches that swayed in the breeze, Jemma lay with her head in Fitz's lap as both of them read quietly, only breaking the quiet to talk about the sunshine or a quote that they just read. Around lunchtime, they ate fresh fruit and sandwiches in the shade and Jemma could hardly stop giggling when Fitz tried to romantically feed her a strawberry. She kissed him through her tight smile and his lips had tasted like berries and as she had knocked him over onto the red striped picnic blanket, she had tried to fight the joy in her heart that told her that she had finally found her soulmate. When they finally made their way back home, the sun had painted the sky in broad strokes of pink and orange and red like the heavens were on fire, burning just for them. Together, they made dinner with their windows open and when night finally fell, they found a ladder and climbed up on the roof of their house, and lay on their backs to watch the stars.

Jemma, when she had been younger, had undergone a painful scoliosis surgery and had spent months bedridden with only the stars for company. She told Fitz, somewhat sheepishly, that the stars had been her only company then, and had memorized the night sky above her Sheffield home. It had been her gateway into the world of science, and though she had found biochemistry to be a more suitable and practical subject, astronomy was where her heart lived. She pointed out all of her favorite constellations in the night sky and told Fitz about them, and he asked questions and listened.

"The Large Magellanic Cloud is still an active star forming region." She was telling him. "It's in the corner of that constellation, there."

"Mostly protostars though, right?" He asked, squinting.

"Yeah. Pre-nucleosynthesis." She confirmed. Then she frowned. "But, it's strange."

"What is?" He turned his head to her, as she watched the sky.

"It's in the wrong spot." She told him, after a moment. "It should be between Dorato and Mensa, but it's entirely in Dorato, there."

"Maybe it moved." FItz said.

"Not possible." She shook her head. "Stars are ever-expanding away from us-"

"Well, technically spaceis expanding between them, they're not moving-" He corrected her.

"Either way, to our view, all of the stars are getting further away with every second. But it's tiny amounts measured over millions of years. Not within my lifetime, surely, and definitely not that much." She squinted, frowning at the night sky.

"Strange." He pondered. "You're sure?"

"Positive." Though she tried to keep her voice level, the realization had shaken her to her core, and she could tell that Fitz had noticed when he pulled her in closer to his chest and kissed the crown of her head.

"Maybe we should go inside." He told her. "I brought home some books about Synchrotron Radiation in Pulsars from the library last week if you want to read more about it. Maybe the light is lensing-"

"Or maybe the light is being scattered in the ISM-" Jemma attempted.

"Exactly." He nudged her, gently. "You'll figure it out, I'm sure."

She smiled, the warmth of his belief in her flooding her chest. She leaned up and kissed him deeply, and he hummed against her lips in response, surprised at the gesture. "What was that for?" He asked, slightly breathless, when she pulled apart.

"I love you." She told him, looking into the starlight reflecting in his eyes. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her whole life, and the words tumbled straight out of her like she had been holding them in all along.

Then, all she heard were the leaves in the trees sighing in the wind, and the gentle chirping of crickets in the grass. Fitz blinked, his mouth opening in shock, and immediately she felt embarrassed. It had been easy, far too easy to say, and she hadn't even thought about the confession until it had fallen from her lips.

"Sorry." She squeezed her eyes tight as if to hide from the shame, and she pulled herself from his arms. Sitting upright, her skin erupted in goosebumps from the cool wind. She started fidgeting with everything she could; the buttons on her cardigan, the laces on her shoes, anything to distract her from the vacant look on Fitz's face. "I shouldn't have said that," she stuttered, "I mean, it's much to early-"

"No, hey, Jemma, it's okay-"

"-absolute fool, I was just thinking about the stars and-"

"-have to apologize, really-"

"-after only a few days, I absolutely don't expect you to-"

"-fine, I don't want you to be embarrassed or-"

"-should go. I'll just go to bed now-"

"Jemma, will you be quiet for a second?" Fitz stopped her, his voice probably louder than he had expected it. He had managed to push himself up as well, and braced himself up with his arms. "You just surprised me, is all."

"Oh." She felt her cheeks flushing.

"But I don't know if I can say it back, just yet." He told her, sheepishly. "I mean, I've never felt anything like how I feel about you and I can tell that...well, given more time, I could... I mean- Jemma, I'll fall head over heels for you. I know I will."

However ineloquently put, Jemma felt a surge of momentary breathlessness take over her heart, as well as a nearly debilitating sense of shame. She had never felt so heartbroken before, nor so full of hope for the future. He was a beautiful contradiction, and one that she was already in love with, despite all logic. She shook her head, trying to soften the blow on him. "It's fine, Fitz."

"I've never said it to anyone before." Admitted Fitz, glancing up from his eyelashes at her. The moonlight on his skin made him look positively ethereal.

She blinked. "No one?"

He bit his lip, shaking his head so that his curls bounced. "No. I want it to be you, eventually. But, I'm just...not quite there yet."

Understanding even though her heart ached, she reached over and squeezed his hand. "When you're ready, Fitz. Provided it's before the expiry runs out."

He laughed, a big puff of joyful air, that sounded as if it released the tension from their whole conversation. He looked back at her, smiling his bright smile and laughed, "I'll keep that in mind."

"Good."

Smile fading slightly from his face, his eyes flickered down to her lips before he captured them in his. With his hand tangling in her hair, it was a kiss full of starlight and the promise of the future; one where they would always end up side by side, no matter what, bathed in the light of the moon.

She and Fitz woke up together the next morning, and the one after that. They spent a week by each other's sides, then another. Weeks turned into a month, as was the way of the world, and soon they had been together for three.

And everyday, she fell more in love with him. She had discovered, living with Fitz, that love was not like any other resource in the world; it was infinite, and loving him endlessly one day never meant that she had less love to give him the next. She poured and poured until she felt that he must be overflowing with her affection for him, but then rose the next day to find that her supply had not waned, and that she could continue to love him fully and without restraint.

And she was happy. God, she was happy. Being with Fitz was both an unraveling and a wholeness at the same time, disregarding all logic that pointed otherwise. When she looked at him and he smiled at her with that kindness and those eyes, it was self-discovery and self-destruction in equal measure. He challenged her with his intelligence and proclivity for science so that they were always searching for truth, and he learned from her and grew from her as well. When he thrust his hips into her and learned her body as well as he did her mind, there was only the two of them in the whole world. But when he kissed her with lips that tasted like peppermint toothpaste and were tight with smiles far too bright to hold in, she felt that the whole world should share in the wonderful feeling that he brought her, constantly.

They argued, too. Sometimes their discussions about science would get too heated and they would slam doors and yell, but like the planets that they revered so much, they gravitated back to each other easily. Sometimes it was just a misplaced book or a messy dish that stayed in the sink for too long that sparked a disagreement, but other times it was an argument about checking the expiry or about their past relationships. But they had a deep current of love for each other that was impenetrable, and at the end of the day, Fitz's arms were always open. His lips were eternally soft, hungry, and sweet all at once.

It took him two months to tell her that he loved her, but Jemma got flashes of it here and there long before the words fell from his lips. She saw it in the way he looked at her, like his soul was suspended and floating above the ground on which they walked. She saw it in the way he always found ways to kiss her; on her shoulder, the back of her hand, or the tip of her nose. She saw it in their quietest moments when she would catch his faint smile at her over the binding of a book, or when they just lay together in bed, holding each other's hands, talking for hours. She saw it in the offhanded way that he talked about his future, including her in his plans without a second thought, and she saw it in the small, thoughtful gifts that he would bring her home after a long day of tinkering in the System Shop. He always had food to share, time to listen, and advice to give.

It was spring. At least, Jemma figured, it must have been. It was hard to tell because the weather in the System's base was always pleasant, but on the day that he first told her that he loved her, there were more wildflower blooms dotting the green grass than usual. Or, perhaps, she only began to notice them once she heard the words echo in her heart. It was like sunlight hitting a waterfall: suddenly, her world sharpened in color and beauty. That was love. That was Fitz.

They had spent the day at another System True Match party, but unlike the one with Will, by Fitz's side the day was thoroughly bearable. Ironically after all her cynicism, Jemma had gladly worn a pastel dress that was as blue as the sky with flowy sleeves, and she had spent the vast majority of the ceremony chatting amicably with the other attendees in the sunlight. When the happy couple had mounted the stage and taken each other's hands, Jemma had felt an unsupressable urge to glance over at Fitz and when she did, she had seen him wearing the sort of breathless look of adoration that made her entire body glitter like light on the ocean. Cheeks flushing, she had squeezed his hand and kept her eyes trained on the stage, feeling far too exposed to stay in his eyes for long.

People lingered after the ceremony was done, making use of the secluded corner of the System's base in the best way. Tall eucalyptus trees grew alongside a small blue lake, and there was a table laden with food and drink beside a large dance floor. Couples danced quietly or they watched from tables covered in lace, listening to the soft jazz that seemed to come from the ground itself. After both of them had eaten their fill, Jemma pulled Fitz out onto the dance floor despite his half-hearted protests, and pulled him close to her, forcefully placing his hand on her hip and lacing her fingers through his other. "You've never danced, have you, Fitz?" She asked him a moment later, smiling, as he stumbled ungracefully.

"Just in front of the mirror in my undies." He replied sarcastically, staring determinedly at their feet.

"Lovely." She giggled. "Briefs or boxers?"

"Boxers with monkey patterns on them." He answered.

"Thanks for that. I've got a mental picture now." She smiled.

"You and your overly visual imagination. Don't objectify me." Laughed Fitz, still looking down at their feet. He stepped awkwardly on her toe and cursed quietly. "Come on, Jemma. Don't make me dance in front of everyone. It's embarrassing, and plus, I'm stepping on you."

She looked around, and saw everyone fully and entirely absorbed in their own little lives. Some talked, some wandered, some ate, but none were paying attention to them. "It's just you and I, Fitz." She promised him.

"You and me." He corrected automatically, almost stepping on her toes.

She cocked her head to the side, exasperated. "We hardly have to move, really. Look-" She released his shoulder to guide his eyes up to hers, her finger lightly under his chin. "Just shift your weight, and move from side to side."

"That's not dancing." He argued. "That's swaying."

"Then sway with me, Fitz." She told him tenderly, her hand moving to stroke his cheek. She ran the backside of her fingers softly up his jaw, his stubble scratching her gently.

"Yeah, okay." He almost whispered. "You make a convincing argument."

It took him a minute to get the hang of it. Then she felt the tension leech out of his body as he relaxed, pulling her closer to him. With one arm wrapped around her waist and the other holding her arm to his chest, he leaned his chin against her forehead and tucked her into his neck. She closed her eyes, enveloped in his warmth, as he swayed them from side to side. She was utterly peaceful; she could hear the wind fluttering the eucalyptus leaves and the meaningless din of comfortable conversation all around her, but all that really mattered was the heartbeat deep in Fitz's chest and the light brush of his lips against the crown of her head.

"I love you, Jemma." He breathed, so quietly that she almost missed it.

Slowly, she unraveled herself from his arms and found his eyes. They sparkled in the afternoon sunshine and with something else entirely: something that could level buildings and tame seas. There seemed to Jemma no place more wonderful in the world to hear it than to be wrapped in his arms in the springtime. Her mouth opened in surprise but he didn't drop his gaze. "I mean it." He muttered earnestly, his voice sounding too tight and emotional to speak any louder than a murmur. "I love you."

"I love you, too." She responded, breathlessly.

"I'm sorry it took so long." He told her, but she was already shaking her head.

"No-"

"I was just afraid, I guess." He admitted. "I almost said itsomany times."

"Really?" She asked, tears rising to her eyes.

Nodding, he pulled her closer, pressing his forehead against hers for a beat. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Like when I came home that one night and found you asleep on your astronomy book. Or when you made both of us tea, and you remembered how I took mine. Or... when you wake up in my arms, looking so soft and beautiful. Jemma, I've been bursting with it."

"Oh, Fitz." She beamed, her eyes spilling over.

"It feels so good to say it." He grinned, sheepishly, his own eyes sparkling with emotion. "I was watching them up on that stage and then I saw you, and... God, it was like I couldn't wait another second."

"I love you." She repeated.

"One day that will be us, up there." He told her quietly. "It has to be. Or…" A shadow passed over his face momentarily.

"Don't think about it, Fitz." She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. "Not for a second."

He bit his lip, sadly. "I try not to. But I think that's part of the reason it took me so long to say. I'm- well, I thought, maybe, if I never said it aloud-" He stopped himself and clenched his jaw.

She smiled, sadly. "That's not how it works."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Love doesn't make people stick around, anyway. Not in my experience."

She frowned at that, trying to remember if he had mentioned something of the kind in any of their thousands of endless talks. He understood the confusion on her face, and lowered his voice almost shamefully. They still swayed in each other's arms, wrapped in each other.

"My father." Replied Fitz, quietly, answering her silent question.

It was strange, really, how quickly anger flared up in her chest at the idea of this unnamed man abandoning someone as gentle as Fitz. In the simple word, there was so much unsaid, and so much understood. Then, just as quickly, the fire of fury was doused by a rush of affection for her boyfriend, one that prompted her to tuck herself back into his shoulder and sigh. She felt her eyelashes tickle the soft skin of his neck. "I'm not going anywhere." She promised him.

"Good." She heard his voice rumble in his chest. "Because neither am I."

They were the last couple on the dance floor, swaying in each other's arms until the stars had begun to shine and the servers had cleared the tables. Then, hand in hand, they made their way back to their little home, and it felt like forever was already within Jemma's grasp. Her forever, at least, had interlaced his fingers with hers.

The door to their now familiar little house beeped when Fitz pressed his hand into the lock pad. He pushed the door open for her and she walked inside, draping her purse on the little peg on the wall and kicking off her uncomfortable shoes. After such a beautiful day and ceremony, Jemma could think of nothing better to do than to curl up in Fitz's arms and to chase dreams, so she moved directly to their bedroom. Fitz ambled slowly behind her.

Facing her reflection in the mirror, she went to work on her jewelry, pulling all of it off and setting it on little hangers and in little bowls. She caught Fitz's reflection in the mirror too, leaning effortlessly against the wall as he watched her, his hands unbuttoning his sleeves and pulling off his shirt. It was a domestic sight, and one that made her grin quietly.

Her hands went to the zipper down her back, but when she pulled at it she could only get it halfway down. She tried again, but it jammed. "Fitz?" She called, her eyes meeting his. "Could you help me with this, please?"

He strode over to her a moment later and she could feel the warmth that he radiated behind her even though they weren't quite touching. His hands tugged gently at the zipper, and she felt it give as he slid it slowly down her back. "There." He told her, kissing her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist.

She hummed, closing her eyes to savor the feeling of his body against hers. Emotionally, after their conversation that day, she had never felt closer to him and was suddenly desperate to show him how she felt. Even though the angle was slightly imperfect, she threaded her fingers through his curls and pulled him in for a kiss, their lips soft and seeking. It was only when Fitz opened his mouth to her, running his tongue deftly across hers, that she felt his grip on her hips tighten, and realized that he might be desperate to show her, too. Her face broke into a smile as she looked back at them in the mirror, watching Fitz's eyes flutter closed as he nuzzled her neck.

"I love you." He spoke it like a promise into her skin, his hands moving over the fabric of her dress to splay across her stomach.

Her eyes closed as the words danced upon the air around her, making her heart flutter happily. Then, her voice breathless, she whispered, "Show me."

She thought she felt his hands falter. Then, obediently, he removed his hands from her belly to slowly pull the sleeves of her dress down her skin, to where the sky blue cloth pooled like the ocean around her feet as she stepped out of it. His butterfly soft grazes down her arms made her skin tingle as, gently, Fitz hooked a finger under the elastic in her hair, tugging until the curtain of brown curls came free around her neck. Softly, he brushed her hair to the side and pressed his lips into her skin. She sighed and leaned her head back onto his shoulder, content.

"I love you." He repeated, before slowly kissing up her neck to her earlobe, which he took eagerly in his mouth. Jemma hummed as he moved his tongue against it, pulling only slightly with his teeth. She grabbed his hands where they trailed on the skin of her hips and pushed them lower so that they skimmed the lace of her panties, hoping that he got the somewhat unsubtle message. With a drumming heartbeat, Jemma began to move her hips against his slowly, her body already alight with warmth, and felt Fitz's body respond to her.

Finally, his deft hands moved under the lace garment that separated them, and made one feather-like pass over her most sensitive spot. Gasping and grinning quietly, Jemma reached back and threaded her hands in his curls to where his lips were still busy with the skin of her neck. It was electricity of the best kind, and a powerful love song with no words. Jemma's eyes fluttered open to watch their reflections in the mirror, her cheeks flushing as she watched his hand moving against her center under her panties. She ground into him then; shehadtoo. It felt as though she was inflating with joy and pleasure, and the only thing in the whole world that was real was the feeling of his lips and fingers as her arousal built.

"I love you." He repeated, and the words, coupled with the movement of his fingers, made a thrill go through her.

"I love you, too." She told him, her voice sounding like a sigh.

That seemed to be enough; Fitz's body moved away from hers just long enough to unbuckle his belt and step out of his trousers and dress shirt, and Jemma reached behind herself to unclasp her bra. He grabbed her hand, meaning to pull her to the bed, but she stopped him. "No." She muttered, suddenly. "I want to watch us."

His blue eyes flickered to the mirror before her, then darkened as he understood. He stepped back into her, his hands moving slowly up her ribcage until they were cupping her breasts, the pads of his thumbs brushing across the hard peaks. Head rolling back onto his shoulder, she moaned, feeling positively electric as he squeezed her. His breath fanned over the skin of her throat and she ground her hips against him, smiling slightly when he responded in kind. Her eyes opened again for a moment to find their bodies in the mirror, and she was surprised by how arresting the sight was. She had always felt the reverent way that Fitz touched her, kissed her, loved her, but she had never seen it before. She had never really seen the way his lower lip grazed her skin, or the furrow of his brows as he humped her, but it was a sensual sight, and Jemma felt her own arousal gathering between her legs.

"I love you." He murmured between hesitant half-thrusts against her.

Moaning, she pulled at the lace of her panties on her hips, hungry to be closer to him still. The cloth clung to her as she tried to shimmy them down her legs to make room for him, but when they finally hit the floor, they were joined quickly by his briefs. She felt him move against her, his tip teasing at her opening, but then he reached down and guided himself inside and she sighed in pleasure as he reached all of her most sensitive spots.

"I love you." He repeated, when he was fully inside.

They moved together seamlessly. At first he held her up, thrusting surely and deeply up inside of her, but the position wasn't sustainable and so she let him bend her over slightly so that she was braced on the side of her bureau, hands clenching the counter. In the mirror, she could still see every movement he made against her, and it ratcheted up her own ecstasy to a height that she had scarcely felt before. Watching him plunge in and out of her, glistening with their arousal, and hearing him mutter that he loved her was a sensory overload, and she moaned loudly, far from caring how obvious it was to anyone that could hear that she was his, and that he was hers.

His hand moved around her hip to rub against her clit in time with his thrusts and she arched her back, watching her reflection as her mouth opened in pleasure. It was overwhelming to see his hand slicking through her folds along with his cock, and she was quickly reaching the breaking point, her body clenching tighter each time his hips met hers. Her breasts jiggling as he buried himself in her, she ground a little harder against his hand, desperate for release.

"Fitz, I-" She started, then he groaned at the sound of her lips forming her name. She broke off into a shout, feeling his thrusts becoming more and more disjointed. "I love you." She groaned, clenching tighter at the bureau. Her fingers were white. "I love you, I love you, I-Oh!"

With a final pass of his fingers against her clit and a final push inside of her, Jemma's body was electrified. She arched her back up, keeping her eyes open so that she could watch herself lose control against him. Mouth half open and eyes half-lidded, she moaned loudly as she came, grinding slowly into his hips and hand to draw out the pleasure that filled her to the brim. Heartbeat thumping, she watched him let go too. He took his lip between his teeth and his stomach muscles tightened and he thrust once more inside of her until he let out a strangled yell.

They moved together slowly for just a minute longer until he pulled out of her, their arousal leaking down her legs. She stood, shaky, and he pressed a damp forehead against her hairline. "I love you, Jemma." He whispered, one final time.

"I love you, too." She promised him, pulling him closer until finally, blissfully, their lips met.

Jemma loved sleeping next to Fitz. In sleep he was another being entirely; his face was young and relaxed and his eyelids fluttered. There was no tension in his whole body, and he radiated so much warmth that Jemma hardly ever needed a blanket. Unconsciously, in sleep, he always managed to throw a limb over her or to curl his body closer to her, and before he had explicitly told her that he loved her it had been moments like these, moments where he wasn't even awake, that she knew it to be true.

A loud thunderclap woke her up that night, and she opened dazed eyes to see rain pounding against the window at a torrential pace. There was a double paned glass door in their bedroom that led out to the joyful little garden outside, but tonight it was all black and ominous out. At first, Jemma was surprised. In the year that she had been on the System, she had never once seen it rain. Suddenly restless, she roused quietly from bed and padded over to the doors, pressing her palm upon the glass. Immediately, the cool surface misted around her fingertips, the temperature differential between her warm, sleepy body and the stormy air outside large enough to make a mark. She watched the storm for ages, breathlessly, as it whipped trees around outside and howled, more grateful than ever for her little home.

Home. She turned to Fitz where he slept on their mattress, sprawled on his stomach with one arm reaching the now cold spot where she had lain. Suddenly, her heart was full of bright yellows and golds, a sentiment that had no place on a rainy night in the latest hours of the night.God, she loved him. Her body ached slightly from showing him quite how much, but the thought of their lovemaking brought a faint smile to her lips. Loving him was such a breathless experience, in sleep or in passion.

A lightning flash outside brought her back to reality, and all at once Jemma was terrified. Not of the storm, really, she was used to tempests of a similar caliber back in England, but of the System. Could they really take Fitz from her with a simple countdown? Would they? They had been happily together for three months, but Jemma had no idea how much longer they would be allowed to last. Her heart begged for forever. They loved each other, after all; they'd whispered it into each other's skin. Surely that meant something.

Innocently upon her bedside table sat her device, and it caught a single sliver of moonlight. She hadn't spoken to her System Coach, Jarvis, since being paired with Fitz, but she was suddenly filled with an intense desire to ask him the fatal question.

But,Fitz. On their first night back together, they had made a promise not to look at the expiry for fear that it would sour their time together if they really knew how fleeting it would be. They had agreed on it. Though her hand itched with wanting to grab her device, she held back. Desperately, she glanced back at Fitz's figure to steel her confidence.

But when she did, all she saw was every reason to check the countdown. He shifted in his sleep, turning his head peacefully upon his other cheek, and it twisted up all of her heartstrings until she was a mess. She couldn't do it any longer; she had to know.

Debating only a moment whether or not to wake him, she decided against it. He looked so tranquil, it would be an absolute crime to spoil it. Plus, by the way the corners of his lips peeked up and the soft way he breathed, it was clear that he was having a pleasant dream. No, Jemma chided herself, she would just have a quick peek, and then she would return blissfully to his arms.

Wrapping herself quickly in her thick robe to stem the chill, Jemma carefully slid open the glass doors and stepped quietly onto the rain soaked patio in her bare feet, her device in hand. It thundered wildly outside, and the rain pelted at her hair. She had better do it quickly, she cautioned herself, before she froze or was struck by lightning. Her screen beaded with wetness as she pressed her thumb into the device. It beeped to life, and she raised it surely to her mouth.

"Jarvis?" She whispered.

"Hello, Jemma." The voice answered, happily. "What can I do for you?"

Jemma fidgeted, glancing back through the glass behind her to Fitz's sleeping figure. "Jarvis, I have to know."

Rain pounded into her, dripping off her hair and face. The device didn't respond, so she repeated herself.

"Know what, Jemma?" It asked her. "You will have to narrow your query."

Her voice shook. "I have to know the expiry. For me and Fitz."

Unbound by human sentimentality and morality, the screen immediately changed on her device, showing a small glowing fingerprint. "To show the expiry, press your screen."

Jemma's finger hovered and her heart felt as stormy as the night outside. Her robe was rightly soaked through by then, and she shivered with cold, longing for Fitz's comfortable warmth. But she swallowed her fear and pressed her finger into the cold screen. It beeped. Heartbeat pounding, Jemma read the little glowing numbers.

Six years, eight months, and twelve days,it glowed.

Simultaneously, Jemma felt a sense of overwhelming relief and a powerful wave of sadness. Six years and eight months with Fitz were more than she had hoped for, and yet so much less. She had wished, foolishly, that there would be no end. That the screen would read an error, for Fitz was already her true System match. But apparently, such was not the case.

Still, it promised six years and eight months ofFitz.Of their love, of their endless conversation, and of the fierce joy that had possessed Jemma since the night they had met...six years and eight months more of it. She was so happy that she could have burst. Smiling contently, she grabbed the handle to the sliding door, prepared to discard her wet things and rejoin Fitz in their bed, when her device made another beep and she removed it, confused, from her pocket.

"Recalculating." Jarvis' voice stated, officially.

Horrified, Jemma watched the screen as it flashed, and when it stopped, the device readfour years, two months, three weeks, one day."No." Jemma whispered, her heartbeat spiking and hand dropping from the door handle to clutch tightly at her device. She had just lost two and a half years with Fitz in mere seconds. "No, no, no,no, Jarvis? What's happening?"

"Recalculation due to one-sided expiry viewing. Recalculating."

Again, the countdown changed, this time reading,two years, one month, two weeks.Trembling, Jemma shook the device, stuttering at it to stop its countdown. "Make it go back!" She told it, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.

"Once recalculated, the expiry cannot be extended." Jarvis told her, calmly. "Recalculating."

"When will it end?!" She sobbed, pressing the screen in agony. "Make it stop!"

"Recalculation will stabilize shortly. Please be patient." Said Jarvis.

"No, no, no." Her voice had turned guttural and she slid down the glass, one hand on her forehead and the other clutching her device with white knuckles as her time with Fitz faded from between her fingers.

It seemed to go on forever. It recalculated and recalculated and all Jemma could do was watch, paralyzed, as it flashed. It felt as though someone had ripped out her insides, hollowing her out; she could scarcely believe how empty she felt, and how guilty. Finally, with the expiry readingtwenty seven hours and thirty six minutes, the recalculation ended.

"Expiry has stabilized." Jarvis explained.

The thunder and rain continued without ceasing, but she hardly breathed. Jemma was soaked to the bone and freezing, but she could scarcely move from the shock. It was her fault,allher fault. She had broken their agreement, and it had cost her everything. Numb, but not quite sure how to change it, Jemma stood on shaky legs and pulled the sliding door open quietly, careful not to wake Fitz.

She looked at him for ages. It quelled the horrible drumming of her panic to watch him breathe slowly, in and out, looking so peaceful. Dropping her robe to the floor and suddenly desperate to be close to him, she lifted the covers and snuggled in beside him, heartbroken at how easily she fit against his skin. She only had twenty seven hours left to love him.

He shifted awake, blinking blearily at her. She watched his eyes grow confused. "Jemma, you're freezing." He told her, his voice hoarse with sleep.

Holding back her tears, she lied. "I wanted to watch the storm."

"Your hands are like ice." Carefully, he grabbed them between his own and blew warm air across them. She felt the softness of his lips against her knuckles. "What were you thinking?"

Somehow, the question carried a whole lot more weight than he had expected. Tears welling up in her eyes, she pulled him closer. "I don't know." She whispered into his neck, devastated. "I don't know."


	5. a love like that

Chapter Text

That night, Jemma didn't sleep, but Fitz did, and soundly. Though her body was wracked with emotional exhaustion, imagining closing her eyes for a single second and missing out on the man that she loved was absolutely unthinkable to her. Suffice to say, it was the worst night of her life; she was practically numb from grief and from shock, but also terribly antsy to spend every last moment enjoying his company. Finally, when the sky started to lighten enough to justify movement, she shook Fitz from sleep, desperate to savor the rest of their twenty four hours.

"Wuzzgoinon?" He mumbled, as she nudged his shoulder gently but surely. He blinked, confusion crossing his dazed features. "You alright?"

"Let's get up." She told him, scooting closer to wrap her legs around his, trying to keep her voice steady. "I want to watch the sunrise."

"Five more minutes." He compromised unhappily, burrowing himself back in the pillows. "I'm so comfortable."

"Fiitz." She whined. Blissfully ignorant, he didn't realize that they didn't have five minutes to spare. "Please."

He didn't move, and she had a feeling that the tendrils of sleep had already pulled him back under, so she leaned in and kissed him deeply, snaking her hand along his jaw and pulling him close. She felt him awaken under her lips and it was a revelation; he hummed in surprise, and she felt his body flail slightly under their soft sheets to kiss her back. She fought off both the crushing wave of sadness and bright happiness that his kiss accompanied. After all, there was no guarantee that this kiss wouldn't be their last, they had so little time left. But still, there was no universe where kissing Fitz wouldn't bring her an unflagging joy, and so she tried not to smile as she pulled at his bottom lip, grazing it with her teeth and then soothing it with her tongue. With her hands laced in the curls at the base of his head, trailing along his scalp, her tongue ran over and over against his, so she shouldn't have been surprised that he moaned into her lips. It was easy to imagine the train of events that could have easily followed: still bleary, he would have slipped a hand under her nightshirt and played with her nipples, and she would have deftly swung a leg over his torso to grind against him. Their room would have soon been filled with moans of pleasure as they greeted the new day with their lovemaking, but as much as Jemma liked her physical relationship with Fitz, it was his soul that she loved. They had to spend their time wisely, not just tangled up in their sheets. Quickly, Jemma exchanged her passionate kisses for chaste ones, brushing touches, and little sighs to bring the heat back down. Nuzzling at his nose with her own, she pulled back and looked at him under her eyelashes. He looked rather surprised, and much more awake.

"You know, you can be pretty persuasive." He told her, his voice hoarse and chest heaving. "The sunrise, you said?"

She smiled at him. "Let's go."

Half an hour later they walked, fingers intertwined, towards the lake on the System's base. The sky was a faint purple, just light enough for them to see their way on the pebbled path, and it felt as though nothing but them on the entire planet was moving. The air was brisk and cool, and little puddles of rainwater from the previous night's storm dotted their walkway like melted silver, catching and reflecting the last rays of moonlight. They reached the lake's edge and stopped. Fitz had brought a blanket and a picnic tarp, and he lay the tarp down against the trunk of a tree before settling in to sit. He extended a hand to Jemma, which she took, and she sat comfortably between his legs and against his chest. He rested his chin on the crown of her head, and wrapped the both of them in the warm blanket. She could feel his steady heartbeat beneath her, but to Jemma it sounded like a ticking clock. It frustrated her; around them, everything was so peaceful, and Jemma felt her eyes tearing up. She didn'twantto leave all this behind, and she didn'twantto think about the end. She didn't care if the System thought that there was someone better for her: wasn't love a choice? The System was a tool, yes, but in the end, wasn't it her right to be with the person that she wanted? The one she loved so deeply sometimes that it frightened her?

The sky turned the faintest pink as she thought, and the trees breathed in the light wind. Under the blanket, Fitz squeezed her hand. "You were right to come here." He whispered. "It's beautiful out, especially after the rain. It smells like home."

"Do you miss Scotland?" She asked, staring across the lake to the green hills, sparking in rainwater. "Being on the System, away from your family…"

"Yeah." He told her, honestly. "But not as much when I'm with you. I'll take you there when we get out of here, you know."

Tears pricked at the corners of Jemma's eyes. "Really? Won't your mother be scandalized that you brought home an Englishwoman?"

"She'll love you." He promised her. "Although she's quite the cheek-pincher, so watch out for that I suppose. Oh, and if she offers tea, just refuse."

"Why?"

"My mum can talk for hours. And she will, if you get her started. Tea is the catalyst." Explained Fitz.

"She sounds lovely." Jemma smiled.

"One day, I want to move back there." He said, quietly. "Would you...would you like that?"

Jemma considered it, and found that the answer rose to her lips as easily as if it had always been there. "There was a little cottage in Perthshire that we drove past when I was a girl, on some...family holiday." She explained, squeezing his hand. "Ever since I met you, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. A place where you and I could have…" She managed to stop herself before her conditional tenses betrayed the truth that she knew. "That's that, I suppose."

"Hm." Fitz hummed, and she could hear his content smile. He kissed the crown of her head and pulled her closer. "Perthshire is beautiful. Not many big cities, though. You'd go mad without your beakers and equipment."

"So would you." She reminded him.

"All I need is you." He told her, easily. "Doesn't matter if it's a cottage that drips in the rain or a penthouse flat in central London. If I have you, I'll be a happy man."

However lovingly he had said it, Fitz's words made an impressive wave of guilt crash in Jemma's heart. In all of her late-night thinking, she had almost forgotten that Fitz had just as much to lose as she did. He loved her, after all. She was the first person he had ever said the words to, and Jemma didn't take that honor lightly. So as the sky turned lighter and grew streaks of red and orange, Jemma swallowed her fear and her pride, and spoke. "I checked the expiry."

Fitz's body tensed underneath her, and Jemma winced, hating herself. "That's why you were awake last night." He realized. "That's why...that's why we're here, isn't it?"

"I couldn't...I had to know, Fitz." She said, her voice shaking.

"We promised." Jemma couldn't see him, but from the thick sound of his voice, it was clear that he was heartbroken. "Jemma, we promised not to."

"I know." Tears began to well up in her eyes, big, fat ones. One rolled down her cheek. "I'm so sorry, Fitz. But I don't think we'll get to Perthshire."

He was quiet for along while, and Jemma found that the quiet was a terribly loud thing. She felt like she could hear his thoughts and anger pulsing through his body. She could hear her own self-loathing and guilty ones too, and it felt like the whole System buzzed with white noise.

"I thought about looking too, you know." He managed to say. "But I never did. It was too important. We'd...we'd promised."

Her heart ached. "That's why I did it. Because it was so important. Becauseyouare too important to me. I had to know."

The sky was bright orange now, and it reflected off the glassy lake in a million different shimmering directions. "I understand why you did it." He told her, slowly. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

She had to let go of his hand to wipe her eyes. She sniffed, overwhelmed by his capacity to forgive and to love. "Don't you want to know how long?" She asked, her fragile voice shaking like paper in the wind.

She felt his chest rise and fall with his heavy sigh. "No. But since we're here, it can't be long."

"Twenty four hours." She said aloud, her lower lip trembling. "It was six years, but since I looked...it changed. I couldn't make it go back."

"Six years?" He repeated, breathless. "We would have had six years?"

"I'm so sorry, Fitz." She said again, guilt and shame pumping through her veins in the place of blood.

He was quiet again for a long while. Jemma turned herself so that she could look at him, and she found his cheeks to be shining with silent tears. His blue eyes looked divine in the sunrise, but she had never seen him look so old; it was like her words had aged him in the span of a few minutes. She reached up and touched his cheeks, wiping the moisture away, and he closed his eyes to savor the feeling, a few more errant tears leaking down. "What do you think we should do about it?" She whispered.

He let out a long sigh, and opened his eyes. Jemma felt like she could see the light of the entire universe reflected in his eyes. "For now?" He asked, sounding more mature than he ever had, "let's just watch the sunrise."

Somehow, it was the perfect response. A bubble of emotion popped in her chest and she was choking on her sad smile as she reached up to touch the sides of his face. Closing her eyes, she kissed him in the pink and orange light of the new day, trying to make her lips say the things that her words somehow could not. I'm sorry, she said as she brushed kisses softly against his mouth.I was wrong, she told him, running her fingers through his curls.I love you, she said, with every beat of her heart.Fortunately, the latter were words that she could say out loud as well, and so she did, a breath away from his lips. "I love you, Fitz."

He didn't respond, but he leaned his cheek into her hand and squeezed his eyes eyes shut, a few tears running down his face and dripping off his chin. Then, with a voice like glass inches from shattering, he whispered that he loved her too.

They stayed tightly intertwined until the sun was properly up, breathing in each other's company. Jemma had half a mind never to move again; she would stay by his side until the armed System police came to pull her from him, and still she would plant herself like a tree beside him, unbudging. It was quite an alarming and overwhelming feeling, never wanting to be without someone to the degree that she wanted to stay with Fitz.

But move they did, eventually. Fitz took her hand in his and the blankets under his other, and they walked without speaking back to their house. It was so quiet when the door clicked open, it felt like a mausoleum. Jemma could hardly look at Fitz's face; it was so blue and hurt, but so utterly resigned. There were dark circles under his eyes from where he had exhausted himself with tears, and in sadness he carried himself differently: his shoulders slouched and his feet dragged, and he played with the palm of his right hand absentmindedly. It felt like a punch to the stomach to look at him in such a way, knowing it was her and her actions that had caused it. Even though she knew that he forgave her, the blessed man, it couldn't mask the enormous hurt that he wore over his shoulders like a cape that weighed him down.

"We can fight it." Jemma told him, suddenly. "Not leave each other tomorrow."

"And what about the System police? That's why they're here, to keep order. If we stay past the expiry-"

"I don't care about the police." Jemma spat. "I don't care about the System. I only care about you...us."

"There won't be an us if we get thrown in prison." He answered, hollow.

"Then at least we fought for it. For each other." Desperately, Jemma stepped closer to him and grabbed his hands. "Don't you want that? Do you not want me anymore?"

For one long second, he didn't respond and Jemma had the sudden and horrifying feeling that she had pushed him away by checking the expiry. "Oh, God." She breathed, numb. "Have I broken us, Fitz?"

She was so overcome that she had to turn away from him, and she ran her fingers through her brown hair to ground herself. As she was spiraling, Fitz's hands hurriedly turned her around and grabbed her jaw, pulling her violently into his lips, successfully silencing her depressive train of thoughts.

She hummed in pleasure and surprise as they crashed together with a quickness and a passion that they never had before. With his tongue laving hers insistently, his mouth was hot and heavy and his fingers tangled almost painfully in her hair as he pushed her backward into the wall. Her body slammed against a doorframe but she hardly noticed; he pressed his whole body against hers, grinding his lower body against her with an unparalleled hunger. Though they had only just begun, she could feel his arousal pressing against her as he rolled his hips frantically against her center. "Fitz-" She groaned, surprised, as he ground perfectly against the seam of her pants so that it pressed against her clit. "What's-oh!"

Without speaking or giving her any sign that he had heard her, he broke away from her lips and moved immediately to her neck, kissing and biting at the soft skin there. The passionate slide of his tongue along her straining veins, coupled with the heavy press of his hungry mouth on her pulse point, made her toes clench underneath her as she struggled to stand. It was a side to Fitz that she had never before seen; when it came to loving her, Fitz had always been so gentle. He had never before shown such want, nor such unbridled lust for her, but the change was a welcome one. He sucked up a love bite onto the flesh of her neck, muffling his own moans into her skin as his hands wandered to the zip of her jeans.

Before Jemma's mind had really caught up, she and Fitz were laying on the floor and he was buried deep inside of her, thrusting so powerfully that she slid a few inches on the hardwood with every press. She arched upward and rolled her eyes back, rising off the ground and shouting so loudly that her voice hurt. Every nerve ending she possessed was on fire, the dials inside her all turned up to eleven. Pushing himself up onto his arms to give him better leverage, Fitz moved his chest away from her and the light from the windows hit the side of his face. Gasping, Jemma was surprised by how far gone he looked, how lustful. He barely opened his eyes to watch her lose control under him; he just let his body do the talking, and warmth expanded outward from where they were connected all the way to the tips of her toes. With one hand, he reached towards her chest and began to play with her nipples, squeezing her breast so tightly that she was sure she would have marks in the morning.

He rode her like that for a few minutes longer, his own throaty groans filling the room to join hers. Her climax built so quickly and so powerfully that when she orgasmed, it was long and felt like it had ripped her in half, her whole body clenching tightly and twitching as she came down from her high. Fitz followed soon after with a yell, slamming his hips into hers a final time, before he too collapsed, spent, on the floor beside her. For a moment, the only sound in their house was of the ticking grandfather clock in their living room.

"Fitz, that was-" She started, drained of energy, before Fitz's mouth was on hers again, sweet and tender, a stark contradiction to the heat that they had just shared. He was slow and loving as he grazed their lips together, and her heart sighed, confused by the change but grateful all the same. He pulled away from her and rested their foreheads together, his hands still holding her cheeks.

"Don't ask me that again. Don't think that I-" Pausing, he opened his eyes, and she was surprised to see tears sparkling in the deep blue. "I want you, Jemma. So much sometimes that it terrifies me. I'm in. Whatever it takes, I'm in."

Somehow, the fervency of his kisses and the softness of his words were the perfect combination. Tension flooded from Jemma's shoulders and out into the floor, and she felt her body relax for what felt like the first time in a year. She looked at him across the ground, to where his eyes watched hers nervously for a sign or a reaction. Breathless, Jemma would remember that look for the rest of her life. It was the cautious and romantic gaze of the man that she wanted to spend forever with, trying to tell her that he felt the same. His eyebrows were creased slightly in worry, but he needn't have been anxious. Jemma was ready to fight for him, with him and beside him, for their love.

"Okay." She whispered, her voice shaky from overuse and emotion.

They didn't have a plan, really. They rose from the floor and dressed, then grabbed their devices and ran back down the pebbled path to the lake. Fitz nodded to Jemma when they got there. "After you."

Grinning widely, Jemma brought her throwing arm behind her, twisting the device between her forefinger and thumb, and launched it across the lake. It bounced four times upon the water, breaking the perfect surface, until it sank and she never saw it again. Whipping her brown hair off her shoulder, Jemma turned to Fitz. "Now you."

He nodded, stepping forward and planting his feet surely. He threw his device across the water. Jemma felt indescribably light as she watched his device bounce four times like hers before disappearing. If there had been any doubt left in her about Fitz, it would have just sank into the cold water among the koi fish and the reeds. They stayed along the water for just a few more minutes, throwing rocks and soaking in their rebellion and the sunshine, before Jemma slipped her hand into his and he gave her a squeeze. They turned without looking back.

When they got home, they climbed back atop their roof to talk until the stars fell. Jemma nestled into Fitz's chest like she was so accustomed to doing, and he held her hand over his heart. Watching the sky, Jemma felt the whole universe in her chest. The cosmos was so massive, so eternal, and so natural. A star couldn't fight its shine any more than she could stop loving Fitz. When a star died, it was in a supernova, and if Jemma had to be separated from Fitz come morning, she would surely explode just as powerfully.

"Did you ever come to a solution about the movement of the Large Magellanic Cloud?" Fitz whispered into her hair.

Jemma glanced back up, having almost forgotten, and found the star-forming region still in the wrong place in the sky. "No." She told him. "But it's not lensing, and if it's light scattering then it's a significant disturbance and it would change more than just that region in the sky."

"That's so bizarre." Fitz decided.

"It's impossible, Fitz." She corrected him. "Something is wrong...I just don't know what."

Then, in a stroke of pure clarity, Jemma gasped. Feeling quite like she had been electrocuted, Jemma sat up and ran her hands through her hair, heartbeat spiking. "Oh my gosh." She muttered, eyes wide.

"What is it?" Fitz pushed himself up, hurriedly. "Did you figure it out?"

She whipped her head towards him. "Fitz, this isn't real."

He blinked. "What...uh, what do you mean?"

"Think about it!" She told him, grabbing his hand. "The night we met, the first night, we connected immediately. It was like we already knew each other, or like we'd done this a thousand times before, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." He agreed. "I felt like we had known each other for years."

"And we never felt that again with anyone." She spoke quickly. "Not with Milton, Will, or Aida. Just us."

"I'm still not following." He scrunched up his face, cocking his head.

"Ever since we got here, this place has been trying to pull us apart. With other relationships, with the expiry, the True Match ceremonies...you know it has. Do you even remember coming here?"

He scoffed. "Of course I do. I was sitting in a garden, and-"

"No." She stopped him. "Before that. You remember your mother and Scotland and your childhood, but do you remember the first time you heard about the System? Do you remember signing up for it?"

His face turned white, and he shook his head. "No. I-I don't."

"How long have we been here, Fitz?" She asked him.

"I don't know." He looked scared. "A year, about?"

"But neither of us have changed. I've never had a pimple, a period, or a stomach ache." She told him. "My hair hasn't grown longer, I haven't cut my fingernails."

"The weather never changes, either." He added, eyes wide. "It's been spring the whole time."

"Except for last night, when I looked at the expiry." She agreed. "This place isn't real, Fitz. I'm sure of it. And it's been giving us clues since we arrived. The Large Magellanic Cloud was one, and we just missed it."

"And today, neither of our devices bounced on the water more or less than four times." He contributed, breathlessly. "Or the rocks that we threw after."

"See?" She told him. "This whole place is a test. Rebelling against it, staying together...it's got something to do with passing it. I know it, Fitz."

"So how do we leave?" He asked.

"Over the wall." Jemma decided. "And into whatever is behind it."

"And if they catch us?" His voice was nervous.

When she answered, her mind was made up. "They won't."

So they ran. They ran and ran and they never tired of it. They left the door open to their apartment, not bothering to close it, and hurried down the familiar path through the System. They ran under the massive stone wall that Jemma had passed under the first night that she had met Fitz, and it felt poetic to end exactly where she had begun. Up one side of the wall, there were tiny rungs that led all the way up the stone surface and into the sky. Jemma grabbed the first rung, and pulled herself up. She climbed, one foot after another, and never looked back down. She could hear Fitz just a step behind her.

As they climbed, it got darker. The stars blinked out and soon all Jemma could see were the rungs of the ladder and her hands. Then, suddenly, both vanished into ones and zeroes, like little bits of code, and Jemma was standing. Her head whipped around to see Fitz beside her, who was looking at his hands, alarmed.

"Did you see-" He asked, and she nodded.

It was then that Jemma realized they were not alone. Stretching for miles, she saw other versions of herself and Fitz, all looking similarly confused. They stood in little couples, in various outfits. Jemma spotted one version of herself and Fitz in the same outfit that they had worn on their first date, and another in the blue dress and suit that they had worn to their True Match Ceremony.

"They're us, Fitz." She muttered, spellbound.

"I can see that." He whispered. "Different versions of us who...rebelled at different times?"

"Has to be." Jemma agreed.

Beside them, one of the versions of them disappeared into a bright collection of ones and zeros, and floated up into the sky. Suddenly, they all started disappearing and becoming little specks of light. There was a little number that counted the couples as they flew up, and Jemma watched the light reflect in Fitz's eyes.

"I love you." She told him, unafraid.

"I love you, too." He responded, easily. "Whatever happens next."

She grasped her hand in his and then couldn't do anything as her body turned into ones and zeroes and floated up into the sky, the last couple to vanish. The counter read that one thousand simulations had been completed, and that one thousand rebellions had been logged. The reading changed from 99.9% compatibility to 100%.


	6. the end

Chapter Text

There was a massive intake of breath across the auditorium, and Jemma Simmons blinked, not quite understanding the sudden change in attentiveness. Confused, she turned to look at the projection screen behind her and felt her body go numb. As a quick test-run of their software, she and Fitz had plugged themselves into the new System, not expecting any results and only wishing for a clear demonstration to the crowd of how their program worked. They had been wrong to expect nothing; the screen, in glowing green numbers, read a one hundred percent compatibility total. She shot a horrified glare at her lab partner, Fitz, but he was watching the screen with his mouth slightly agape.

"Impossible." Jemma whispered to herself breathlessly, hurrying to the computer on the stand to reset the simulation. She pressed enter after typing in a few commands, and it confirmed a full system restart. One minute later, the results of the second simulation went up on the screen: one hundred percent compatibility, a second time. The audience, if anything, got louder. It sounded like the room was full of bees, buzzing with white noise.

"You guys should date!" Someone in the audience yelled, and Jemma felt her cheeks flushing. She had to get control of the room again; it was erupting in whispers, and she could see her colleagues leaning into each other and laughing quietly. This was their final presentation. They had been working on it for weeks: the past month had been a blur of countless hours slaving in the library, late-night coffee runs, equations, stacks of papers, and textbooks piled as high as the ceiling. A cutting edge dating simulation to test for compatibility had been their final project, combining Jemma's speciality in biometrics and brain wave data collection with Fitz's specialty in building and engineering devices to store it all, as well as their joint effort to create the computer generated reality that they plugged the avatars into. The System was an immersive but entirelyvirtualFramework of their own design, and now, listening to the lewd giggles of the audience, Jemma thought that they might have designed their own demise as well.

"Well," Jemma spoke clearly, her cheeks flushing furiously. "There's obviously been some sort of calibration error. But, as we've already demonstrated, the mechanics and the technology in this simulation are state of the art. It combines modern technology with society's fixation on romantic and sexual relationships-"

"Oh my god, they had sex." Someone realized, laughing. "They had sex in a computer program."

"-to safely and decidedly find out if two people are romantically and sexually compatible." Jemma's voice was shaking with embarrassment and anger. "We've already been approached by major Silicon Valley tech companies who want to purchase and trademark this program, such as Google, Tinder, Facebook, and-"

"Look at Fitz," someone hissed, laughing. "He looks like he's about to pass out."

Jemma turned quickly to see that Fitz, indeed, wasn't looking well. His face was pale in all the places that Jemma's was crimson, and he was bracing himself on the desk. He had dressed up for the presentation, as Jemma had, the colorful tie around his neck looked more like a noose than a fashion statement as he stumbled for purchase on the desk.

"There was obviously some sort of calibration error." Jemma comforted him, kindly. "A once over of the simulations when we're done should reveal the problem. Don't worry, Fitz. The project is still brilliant."

If anything, his face turned whiter. "I've got to go." He croaked, before scrambling from the scene. Jemma watched him escape, equal parts worried and angry. They were presenting their final project, after all. How could he just leave her on stage, in front of all of their peers and professors and investors, to finish without him?

"I'll now open up the room to questions." Jemma announced, rather nervously, as she watched the auditorium door shut behind him. Every hand in the audience went up.

An hour later, her face still tinged pink, Jemma marched down the dorm hallways towards Fitz's room. Purposefully, she raised a hand to knock against his door. "Go away." He answered through the wood, sounding miserable.

She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Fitz. Open the door."

She heard him on the other side, and he opened the door only wide enough for her to make out a sliver of his face. It was stark white, and covered in sweat, and her angrily prepared lecture about his abandonment of her during their final project flew out of her head, replaced only by worry. "Fitz, are you okay?" She reached a hand through the door, but he scooted away from her.

"I'm fine." He said, harshly.

"You look horrible." She told him. "Let me in, let me take a look at you-"

Two people passed in the hallway behind them, and one of them snickered. "Yeah, Fitz. Let her take a look at you."

Jemma turned quickly at the two, shooting both of them a murderous gaze. They laughed as they quickened their pace away, and Jemma focused her attention back at Fitz. His lower lip was trembling as he watched them, seeming quite angry and achingly embarrassed at the same time.

"For goodness sake, Fitz." Jemma scolded him. "It was a calibration error."

"Yeah, in front of the entire Academy." He hissed. "Now everyone thinks that we're...as if they didn't already tease us enough."

"They'll get over it." She assured him, firmly. "We need to find the error and correct it. When you ran away and left me alone onstage, Tony Stark came up to me as a potential investor, Fitz."

"What?" Fitz's mouth opened in shock.

"We have to fix the error. Make sure it's perfect, and give it another run through." She told him. "I know you're embarrassed, and I am too, but this is so important."

He pursed his lips and shuffled his feet. He still hadn't opened the door larger than a crack, so she could hardly read the expression on his face. "You're embarrassed?" He muttered, quietly.

She let out an unbelieving chuckle. "Of course I'm embarrassed. We spent months on our project and the only thing anyone will remember is that we had sex in a virtual dating framework."

He blanched at that, the thought apparently not having occurred to him. "Why thehelldid we put ourselves in, again?"

"You know why." Jemma argued. "It was too complicated to get biometric scans of someone else. And we needed the synapses to track the-"

"Yeah, I know." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It was a rhetorical question."

Something about his response prickled her and she crossed her arms. "Well, when you're finished being disgusted at the thought of a romantic relationship with me and you accept that it was acalibration error, you can find me trying to fix our project so we can still sell it."

"No!" He shouted hurriedly, opening the door a bit. "No, I'll do it. I mean, I left you onstage, after all. It's the least I can do."

"Oh, right. By the way, I am quite angry with you for that. I had to answer fifty seven questions on my own," she said, crossing her arms, "some of which were entirely out of my area of expertise."

"Sorry." He grimaced.

"You scared me." She told him, honestly, dropping her arms. "You were so pale. You've never...well, you've never done that before. And we've done dozens of presentations together in the past. I thought you were having a fit or something."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged. "Stage fright, lack of sleep, and widespread social embarrassment don't mix, I guess."

"Let me know if you run into any problems with the data." She told him. "I'll go grab us some coffees from the Union, and meet you in the server room."

"Thanks" He responded.

She turned on her heel and walked away, headed for the Union. Then, she heard Fitz call out to her. "Oi! Don't forget the extra sugar packets!"

Smiling, Jemma rolled her eyes and walked away.

Fitz stumbled as he pushed open the heavy door to the server room, breathing hard. As soon as Jemma had rounded the corner to the Union, her long brown ponytail swaying as she walked, he had booked it to the server room to get a headstart deleting the data. He had never run so fast in his life, and his face was flushed from the effort.

There was obviously some sort of calibration error, she had said. Oh, Fitz bemoaned himself, if only it were that easy. Honestly, Fitz was almost offended that she had thought that; the two of them had worked so tirelessly to make sure everything was perfect, and even though she didn't specialize in engineering she should have known that there was no calibration error that he could have programmed to make such a massive mistake. The one hundred percent compatibility reading was all his fault, but it wasn't an error.

Fitz had quietly and surely been developing a hopeless crush on his lab partner for the past few months, but if she were to read the data of their simulation and find out just how much he liked her, well, Fitz would rather smash their perfect device into little pieces. He could just imagine that his System avatar had arrived to their first System date together and combusted on the spot. He couldn't help it; not only was Jemma Simmons the most stunning girl on the face of the planet, but she was also, undoubtedly, the most brilliant. A tiny part of him had secretly wondered how compatible they would be inside the System, but he had expected a rating in the low thirties. They worked seamlessly together in the labs and in class, so he figured that under the right romantic circumstances theymightbe compatible. But his crush on her was so desperately and hopelessly one-sided, he knew that it would tear down their rating.

But it hadn't. Which meant that he hadn't made a calibration error, but instead he had accidentally projected a one-sided reading to the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy Science and Technology Auditorium. And he had embarrassed Jemma to boot, in the middle of their final presentation. It was a wonder that she had not run out, Fitz thought.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Fitz set upon gathering and deleting the data. He cracked open the side of the device he had made, and connected it to his computer. Immediately, the screen began to log the data from one thousand simulations, and Fitz breathed a sigh of utter exasperation, daunted by the sheer amount of work that he had to go through before Jemma came back.

He started with the first simulations, deleting everything, and worked slowly through the statistics and the figures of the next few. He was, admittedly, dying of curiosity to see just how hopelessly his avatars had fallen in love with Jemma, but he knew he didn't have the time to actually read the play-by-play accounts of each one of the one thousand simulations. Instead, he just deleted and deleted, hoping that there was a long line at the coffee shop.

But soon, far too soon, there was a friendly knock on the door and he jumped, glancing at the computer.Damn. He had only managed to delete two hundred simulations; Jemma would surely have questions as to why he was deleting anyway, so he scrambled to hide the screen with another window, calling out to her. "Who is it?"

"Who do you think?" She called from behind the door. "It's Simmons. Open up."

"One minute!" He answered, frantically.One minute, he chided himself. He needed at least an hour to delete everything, then another two to create another simulation from scratch that didn't condemn him.

"Fiitz." She whined, voice muffled.

He closed his eyes and sighed, knowing that she would never go away, and that he might as well just let her in. He made sure that the computer was still deleting files from behind a covert window, and then unlatched the door to the server room. Smiling, Jemma walked in, holding a cup of coffee out to him and sipping at her own tea.

"How's it going in here?" She asked, blowing air across the top of her cup. "Any progress?"

He took his coffee and shrugged, noncommittally. "It's going, I guess. Lots of data, though. I can handle it if you want to head out."

"Don't be silly, Fitz." She rolled her eyes, setting her bags down on his chair. "We're partners. I won't desert you in your time of need."

"Ah." He bit down on his lips to stop from smiling at her pointed jab. "Will you ever let me live that down?"

"Not in this lifetime." She answered, sipping her tea. "You haven't let go of the cat debacle of 2011."

"The cat." He sputtered, indignantly. "Again with the cat. Simmons, you left its liver next to my lunch! How could I ever forget about thecat-"

"My point exactly." She raised a triumphant eyebrow and he sighed, shaking his head.

"Fine." He compromised. "Perhaps in this oneparticularinstance, I will allow you to, as you say, not let it go."

"So kind of you." She jested.

"You are so welcome." He replied, looking back at the computer screen distractedly.

"Just in case, I'll check the data too." She announced, leaning forward and grabbing the mouse. "You make less mistakes when I'm your second pair of eyes."

"No, Simmons, wait!" He yelped, leaping forward and smacking her hand from the mouse. She turned to him with wide eyes, looking rather scandalized.

"Have you lost your mind?" Jemma asked, her eyebrows raised as she rubbed the back of her hand. "We're partners on this-"

"Yeah, Iknow-"

"And I think I have a right to see the mistakes that we made-"

"It's just boring data collection, at this point." He tried, hiding the screen with his body. "I'll have it sorted out in no time. Thanks for the coffee, but-"

"-absolutely irrational, if it's an error then I'm to blame too-"

"-so boring. And I took point in all the coding, so I know it better anyway-"

"Fitz, really." She interrupted him, voice firm. "It's almost as if you're hiding something from me."

He gulped, speech failing him. Jemma's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she reached forward and pushed him out of the way, grabbing the mouse. Fitz watched helplessly as she clicked on the window that displayed the content of the simulation, his whole body going slightly numb.

"You're deleting it?" Jemma asked, confused. "Fitz, why thehellwould you do that? Do you want us to fail? We haven't turned this in yet, you know-"

"I had to." He spoke, reaching forward. "Simmons, please, let me-"

"Touch me again, and you lose a hand, Leopold." She warned without looking at him, her voice deadpan as she scanned the simulation data. She read for a moment, then spoke again. "I don't understand. The stats look fine to me."

Fitz closed his eyes as tightly as he could, as if not seeing her would stop the truth from tumbling out. All that his straining ears heard was silence, interrupted by the faint click of the mouse as she read. His heart pounded.

"There isn't an error." She breathed a minute later, realization dawning. "That's...that's what you're hiding?"

Fitz wondered if it was his imagination, or if there really was a twinge of disgust in her voice. Either way, he was glad he had his eyes closed; he had no desire to see the grimace on her face as she read his avatar's innermost thoughts.

"The rating was right." She decided. "We were one hundred percent compatible. Romantically and...sexually."

Shaking his head, eyes still shut tight, he felt an apology teetering on the edge of his tongue and it fell out in a stream of incoherent phrases. "Only on my end. I knew that there wasn't- I mean, I thought-well, I've just...it's been some time that I-"

"Fitz, look at me." She commanded, and he did, opening one eye first and grimacing.

She was beautiful, and he hated that that was his first thought. With her hands on her hips, illuminated by the white light of the computer screen, with eyes for nothing but him, she looked like an Amazonian goddess, about to eat him alive. But at the same time she looked like his best friend in the whole world, the only person that he had ever felt close to, and the only reason he wasn't a loner at the Academy. And, in all likelihood, he had just blown all of it to smithereens because his dumb avatar couldn't help but bleed romantic thoughts about his lab partner. He'd broken them, ruined the friendship forever. He knew it.

Suddenly, the urge to bolt from the room again was overwhelming and with one quick muttered apology, he dashed from the server room and into the hallway, tears running down his face.

Fitz hated crying. He hated feeling like such a slave to his emotions, and he hated the way his eyes puffed up and his cheeks reddened, and he hated the way he sounded: like a small, overly emotional child. He especially hated crying when it was like this: huddled, alone in his dorm room, feeling like he had just single handedly ruined the only meaningful relationship he would ever have.

He knew the knock would come, eventually. But he had hoped, foolishly, that she would have rushed out after him immediately after he had left the room. Such was not the case; Fitz cried for a good hour before the soft knock on his door interrupted him.

"Go away." He called, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. After crying for so long, his head pounded and his eyes were almost dry.

"Fitz, let me in." She said, her voice softer than he had expected it to be.

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Fitz wiped a few errant tears from his cheeks and opened the door, thinking sadly that if he let her in, he might at least have the chance to explain himself and apologize coherently. When the door swung open, Jemma was standing there, holding a massive stack of papers to her chest, her brown eyes full of worry. He could barely meet her eyes, and instead looked at his shoes and his shuffling feet.

"You've been crying." She noticed, voice kind.

"Is it that obvious?" He sniffed, miserable.

"Fitz, why did you run?" She asked of him, gently, still clutching the papers to her chest.

"You know why." He answered, shaking his head. "You saw the data. You saw that I- well..." His voice vanished and his throat felt tight, and he couldn't finish.

"You what, Fitz?" She prodded, after he trailed off. "It's just me. You can talk to me, you know. You're my best friend in the world."

"Yeah, and you're more than that, Jemma." He told her, finally finding the courage to look up at her. Her eyes were wide, bright, and sparkling with tears. She looked so beautiful that he had to look away again, and his hands fiddled with the latch on his door. "I've known for a while, but I thought that we wouldn't be compatible in the System because, well, because of how one-sided it was. I tried to delete the evidence before you found out. It wasn't a calibration error. More like a selective viewing error."

"So, you're saying that the rating that we projected didn't take my feelings into account?" She asked. "That it was only so high because you actually have...feelings for me? Romantic and sexual ones, like we programmed?"

He hated it being put like that. Sure, he had romantic feelings for her. He sometimes imagined holding her hand as they walked from class to class, or even cuddling her to his chest in the early morning. He also, definitely, had sexual feelings for her, no matter how hard he tried to suppress them; he had woken up too many times with the dreamlike taste of her lips on his, his pyjama bottoms feeling a little too tight under his covers. In class, he'd imagined pushing her up against their lab table and having her right there, just to wipe the smirk off of her face when she inevitably made a brilliant breakthrough. But those weren't the only feelings he had for her. He hadeveryfeeling for her, each one dialed up to the highest setting. He was amazed by her, constantly. Inspired by her, frustrated with her, confused by her...every single one melded together and made him love her. It was all too simple for her to assume that he only thought of her romantically and sexually. But, at her words, he nodded. It was too complicated to explain to her now, anyway.

"I stopped the deletion." She told him. "And recovered most of the files."

"Did you read them?" He asked, grimacing as he waited for the answer.

"I did."

"All of them?" He said.

"All of them." She confirmed. "That's why it took me so long to get here. There were one thousand simulations to go through, after all."

"I'm sorry." He shook his head, hating himself. "I promise I'll get over it. It won't change anything for us-"

"Is that why you ran, then?" She inquired, softly. "Because you were scared of change? And that I don't feel the same?"

"I don't know." He answered, then he deflated. "Yeah, I guess. I was scared that I'd broken us."

"You don't have to be scared." She promised him, stepping closer. "You didn't. Can I come in now?"

He nodded, opening the door for her and allowing her to step over the threshold. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and sniffed, closing the door with a click. As she walked in, she set the stack of papers on his desk, then turned to him.

"I may have misled you a moment ago. It's true that I read every single simulation." She announced. "But I read them from my own perspective. I didn't read yours."

He blinked, confused, but she kept talking.

"You ran because you thought that your feelings were one-sided, and because you were afraid of change." She stepped closer. "But I brought you one thousand simulations worth of proof that they're not one sided, and that nothing will change between us."

Heartbeat spiking, but his mind not fully caught up, Fitz looked at the massive pile of papers that she had placed on his desk. "Is that...are those-?"

"Yes." She confirmed. "They're the data compilations of the contents of each simulation, from my avatar's perspective. And know what was interesting, Fitz?"

He shook his head, desperate for the answer.

"In each one, I fell for you first." She told him, simply. "At least, I said that I loved you first in every one."

"In every single one?" He was flabbergasted.

"Every single one." She confirmed, Brown eyes sparkling. "A million different ways, but...I said it first, every time."

Suddenly, the room seemed very quiet. Fitz could see the stars out his window and the headlights of cars moving slowly down the street, but the noise inside his dorm was suspended, hovering motionless. He felt quite like he had been hit over the head with something hard; his mouth swung open of its own accord and he blinked rapidly to try and comprehend what she was saying.

"So," he started, gingerly, "what you're saying is that you...like me?"

"More than that." She replied, voice catching with nerves. "I love you, Fitz."

And just like that, Fitz was breathless. In his wildest imagination, he never would have assumed that someone like Jemma couldeverlove someone like him. He was too small, too fidgety, and too pasty to ever win over the likes of her. She was perfect and imperfect in equal measure, a force of nature, and a woman far too wonderful to ever want to be with him. His skin felt numb as his feet took an involuntary step forward.

"You mean it?" He asked.

She nodded, suddenly looking nervous. "Yes. I think I've known for a while, really. It just tookthisto see it. I'm so sorry, Fitz."

"Sorry?" He sputtered, stepping closer. "Why would you be sorry?"

"We've had years, side by side." She replied, eyes filling. "All the late study sessions, the movie nights, the long flights home where I'd fall asleep on your shoulder...and it never occurred to me."

Now that he thought about it, it was difficult to believe that he hadn't spotted it in her either. Frequently he caught her glancing over at him from across the lab, or smiling at him over a book. Sometimes she fell asleep on his bed when they stayed up too late watching British television, and she never complained when he showed up at her dorm with late-night takeout or burning questions about something that he probably could have googled. He had been so caught up in his own feelings and his own pining that he had given himself emotional blinders to the most amazing thing in his whole life: the possibility that she could love him back. They were standing close together now, just a breath apart, and Fitz's heart had begun to leap in his chest at the thought of finally being able to kiss her the way he had always imagined. But there was still the ever-present risk that if he kissed her now, they would never be the same again, and so he faltered.

"It's okay." She whispered, as if sensing his hesitation. "We'll be okay."

Letting out a miniscule nod, he reached out and traced his thumbs across her cheeks, sparks igniting his fingers at the velvet of her skin. Breathlessly, he brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned closer, so that their foreheads were touching. As an engineer, he was familiar with electricity, but he had never before felt such powerful shoots of energy dance up the length of his arms, making his whole body feel like it was buzzing. His heart was pounding so hard that it was almost painful.

Then, Jemma tilted her head and pushed herself up on her tippy toes, closing the gap between them by firmly and surely pressing their lips together. Every single cell in his body turned to jelly, and his skin tingled. At first they were slow, seeking, figuring out how they moved together, but soon they relaxed. Jemma's hands moved up from where they had been hanging at her sides to lightly grab his hips, tightening slightly when he found the courage to deepen the kiss and brush his tongue along the seam of their lips.

She sighed. She actuallysighedinto his mouth, and Fitz fought hard to hide the smile that threatened to spill off his face and ruin their kiss. She pulled his body closer still, her lips tasting like strawberry chapstick and her tongue tasting like tea and dimly, Fitz wondered if it was possible to fall in love so easily. He wanted to kiss her forever, until the sun came up and went back down again, his hands threaded in her soft brown hair and her breath against his lips until the end of time.

She pulled back from him to press their foreheads together, and though his eyes were half-closed from the pure emotion that flooded his chest, he could see that her face had already split into a blinding smile.

"Fitz." She whispered, awestruck.

That was it, really. With his name on her mouth, breathless, and his lips still tingling from kissing her, Fitz fell in love with Jemma. It was as natural a revelation as there ever was, almost like it had always been there, just begging to be discovered. With a small glance to the massive stack of papers on his desk, Fitz was reminded that they would always end up here, side by side, happy and in love with his best friend.

"I love you, too." He promised her, surprised by how easy it was to tell her. She smiled and he leaned in to kiss her again, and he was smiling too, pulling her cheeks into him, his fingers tangled in her soft brown hair. A True Match after all, he thought.


End file.
